Botanist & Barrel’s Asheville outpost is a small, playful downtown tasting bar and bottle shop at 32 Broadway St — the city cousin of a farm and winery based hours away in Cedar Grove, NC, near Durham. The Asheville location is self-described as “the nerdiest bar in the South,” and it’s built for exactly the kind of unhurried afternoon or evening that makes a chauffeured stop worthwhile: no rush to get anywhere else, flights of natural cider and wine, and a menu of local cheese, charcuterie and tinned fish rather than a full dinner.
A Farm-First Story, Told from Two Cities
Botanist & Barrel was founded in 2017 by siblings Lyndon and Kether Smith along with Kether’s husband, Deric McGuffey, on a family farm property in Cedar Grove, NC — a rural community outside Hillsborough, closer to Durham than to Asheville. Kether Smith’s path into cidermaking started with kombucha and fermented vegetables before she picked up wine and cider skills, including a cider certificate program at Cornell University; Deric grew up farming in rural Georgia. The trio describe the brand’s mission as making wine and cider that “tastes like the South” — built from local fruit rather than imported juice, and using old-world, minimal-intervention techniques like spontaneous fermentation. Botanist & Barrel calls itself the South’s first natural cidery and the first in the Southeast to make pét-nat (pétillant naturel) style ciders, a French method that predates Champagne-style carbonation. The company’s Asheville tasting bar and bottle shop opened its doors in downtown Asheville in mid-2021, giving the brand a second, more urban home base separate from the working farm in Cedar Grove. (Sources: Botanist & Barrel “About” page; newsoforange.com reporting on the Cedar Grove opening; Asheville food news coverage of the 2021 Asheville opening.)
What’s Pouring
The Asheville bar’s focus is squarely on the glass: a rotating selection of cider flights and wine flights, plus local craft beer and non-alcoholic options for anyone not drinking. Botanist & Barrel’s ciders and wines under the DeFi Wines label lean into heirloom apples, muscadine grapes, and foraged or farmed fruit like blueberries and cherries, made unfiltered, gluten-free, and without pasteurization. Signature releases have included pét-nat ciders with a fine natural sparkle, a Spanish-style cider called Curate, and carbonic muscadine pét-nat wines — small-batch, funky, and intentionally different from a standard grocery-store cider or wine. Curated tasting flights at the Asheville bar have run roughly $18–$28 depending on the flight, and you can also build your own. (Sources: Botanist & Barrel Asheville tasting bar FAQ; CiderScene coverage of the brand’s pét-nat and Spanish-style releases.)
The Setting: A Small, Playful Downtown Bar
Unlike a farm tasting room, the Asheville location is an indoor storefront bar with bar seating, small tables, and larger tables that can seat parties up to six without a reservation; larger groups are asked to reserve ahead. Outside food is allowed if you want to bring in takeout, on top of the bar’s own boards of local cheese, charcuterie and tinned fish. The bar hosts a regular events calendar that has included weekly Friday night wine tastings, chef pop-ups, live music and comedy — it functions as much as a low-key evening hangout as a tasting stop. (Source: Botanist & Barrel Asheville tasting bar FAQ.)
What Else Is Nearby
Being right on Broadway in downtown Asheville means Botanist & Barrel’s tasting bar is walkable to a dense strip of other Asheville restaurants, bars and shops — this is a stop you fold into a walking evening downtown rather than a standalone drive. If your day includes other Henderson County cider and wine stops like Bold Rock Cidery, plan Botanist & Barrel’s Asheville bar as an evening cap to the day rather than a midday tasting, since the vibe here is more bar-and-bites than vineyard tour.
Planning Your Visit
From Boone, the drive to downtown Asheville is roughly two hours, making this a full-day trip rather than a short outing — most High Country groups pair it with daytime stops at wineries or cideries further out (Mills River, Fairview, or Henderson County) and end the day downtown at Botanist & Barrel. Current hours have run from around 1pm to 8 or 9pm most days, with slightly later closes on Friday and Saturday, but confirm directly with the Asheville bar before you go since restaurant and bar hours shift. Because seating for parties larger than six requires a reservation, larger groups should plan ahead and book a table before arriving. Note that the winery and working farm most of Botanist & Barrel’s marketing describes is in Cedar Grove, NC near Durham — several hours from Asheville — so if you’re picturing vineyard rows, this downtown stop is the tasting bar and bottle shop, not the farm itself.
Wine Tour Transportation to Botanist and Barrel Tasting Bar + Bottle Shop
Ashe County Livery offers private, chauffeured wine tour transportation to Botanist and Barrel Tasting Bar + Bottle Shop from Boone, Banner Elk, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson and across NC’s High Country. Our Botanist and Barrel trip-planning page covers drive times, tasting-room hours, group sizes and pricing.
Travel in a luxury SUV, sedan, or Sprinter van with a professional chauffeur — everyone in your group gets to taste, nobody has to drive. Plan your Botanist and Barrel tour or call (336) 484-1350.
Other High Country wineries we serve: Bold Rock Cidery · Black Mountain Cider & Mead · Deep Creek Winery — or browse every High Country winery, cidery and meadery we provide transportation to.
Explore More from Ashe County Livery
- High Country Wine Tours — Mountain winery shuttle service
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- Airport shuttles by town: Boone · Blowing Rock · Banner Elk · West Jefferson · Linville · Beech Mountain
- Ashe County Livery — Premium transportation in NC’s High Country
- Request a free quote — or call (336) 484-1350
🍷 Planning a Wine Tour in the NC High Country?
Ashe County Livery offers private, luxury wine tour transportation throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains. Skip the driving and let our professional chauffeurs take you from winery to winery in comfort and style.
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