Bitterroot and Bough heritage confectionery emblem with orchard bough Bitterroot & Bough Orchard Hard Drops · Since 1974
Folio three of the house ledger

Allergen & Craft Notes

Revised: August 3, 2026 · Bitterroot & Bough Confectionery · Hood River, Oregon

One kettle room, one marble slab, one set of wood trays. Because every drop in the archive is made in the same small room, anyone with ingredient sensitivities should read this page before choosing a tin.

Shared equipment

Every batch is boiled in the same copper kettle, cooled on the same marble slab and cut with the same brass knives. Trays are brushed clean between runs, but the room is shared.

NOTE A · KETTLE ROOM

Nuts and seeds

No drop in the archive contains nuts as an ingredient. Walnut and hazelnut brittle are made elsewhere in the building during the autumn season, so traces cannot be ruled out.

NOTE B · AUTUMN SEASON

Dairy and gluten

Hard drops, lozenges and pastilles are made from cane sugar, glucose, fruit, botanical infusions and honey. The starch used to cast pastilles is corn starch.

NOTE C · INGREDIENTS

Botanical infusions

Sassafras, horehound, birch, clove and elderflower are infused as water extracts. Root and bark drops carry a naturally assertive, earthy character.

NOTE D · BOTANICALS

Reading a batch stamp

Every tin base carries a stamp in the form BB-0114. The first two digits after the dash indicate the flavor family — 01 orchard fruit, 02 root and bark, 03 hearth spice, 04 bloom and citrus — and the final digits identify the run. Ask the gift desk and we will read any stamp for you.

Texture, heat and hard candy

Boiled sweets are cooked to the hard-crack stage, which makes them firm and long-lasting rather than soft. Starch-cast pastilles are the gentlest texture in the archive. Small, irregular edges and the occasional sugar bloom are signs of hand cutting, not faults.

Keeping a keepsake tin at its best

Questions about a specific batch

If you are choosing a tin for someone with a sensitivity, write to us with the batch stamp or the drop number from the archive. The gift desk keeps the original folio notes for every run and will answer in detail.

A note about your display & flavor preferences

We keep a small local record of your display choices and flavor-matching preferences so the archive, the tasting deck and the badge directory open the way you last left them.