About Our Sweetshop
Bitterroot & Bough is a family confectionery on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge. We boil cane sugar in copper, cut it warm on a marble slab worn smooth by fifty years of folding, and pack the result into tins meant to be kept.
The kettle room
There is one kettle, one slab, one brass knife set and one starch tray cabinet. A run begins at six in the morning with forty pounds of syrup and finishes around noon with roughly 140 jars. Nothing in the room is automated, which is precisely why the flavors taste the way they did when the candy counter was the center of a small town.
The people
Aldous Vane
Founded the sweetshop in 1974 behind a fruit stand with a kettle bought at auction. Still chooses the apple varieties for the Greening sour drop every September.
FOUNDER · RUN 001Marguerite Vane
Second-generation confectioner. Keeps the botanical infusion ledger and developed the spiced pear and quince recipe now in its fortieth year.
CONFECTIONER · RUN 118Teo Vane
Third-generation confectioner and keeper of the tasting table. Runs the starch-cast pastilles and the seasonal huckleberry and quince batches.
CONFECTIONER · RUN 218The gift desk
Three counters, a ledger book and a standing invitation to taste before you choose. Every archived drop is open on the counter during gift desk hours.
COUNTER · TUE – SATVisiting and the gift desk
The sweetshop sits two blocks up from the waterfront on Cascade Avenue. Parking is free on the street after four o'clock and all day Sunday. The kettle room window looks onto the bench, so you can watch a run in progress most Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
- Tasting table open during all gift desk hours — ask for any drop number from the archive.
- Keepsake tins are packed while you wait and tied with cotton ribbon.
- Seasonal flights appear with the harvest: quince in October, huckleberry in August, molasses in December.
Write to us
- Email hello.bitterrootbough@gmail.com
- Address 208 Cascade Avenue, Hood River, Oregon 97031, United States
- Gift desk hours Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Pacific · Sunday noon – 4:00 p.m. seasonal
- Batch questions Please include the batch stamp, for example BB-0210, so the folio notes can be checked.
Reading onward
The drop archive lists every numbered batch with flavor notes, texture profiles and pairing ideas. The allergen and craft notes explain how one shared kettle room handles botanicals, starch and seasonal brittle work.