Cayuga Clear

Cayuga Clear at a Glance

Cayuga Clear has 7 distinct products with 15 total TTB label approvals, including Vodka - Cherry Flavored, Vodka - Grape Flavored, Vodka - Lemon Flavored. Labels approved between 2021-01-27 and 2025-12-01. Label origins on file: New York.

At a Glance data sourced from public TTB records.

Cayuga Clear Vodka: A Finger Lakes Vodka Distilled From Cheese Whey

Cayuga Ingredients had begun producing Cayuga Clear vodka by March 2022, when VinePair reported that 20 New York State distilleries, including Black Momma Vodka, were already using its whey distillate. The company then occupied 7,000 square feet of space with 12 employees and was the only large-scale whey neutral spirit producer in America, the article said.

The two people behind Cayuga Ingredients

Eduard Zaydman and Joe Van Groll started Cayuga Ingredients in King Ferry, New York, by VinePair's account. Zaydman, a Ukrainian immigrant who moved to America as a teenager in 1990, trained in industrial engineering, the article said. Van Groll, a biochemistry engineer who was a Wisconsin cheese executive, had worked part-time in his garage on turning whey into ethanol.

The two converted the Grand Meadow cheese plant in Stratford, Wisconsin into an ethanol factory distilling 5,000 gallons a day, mainly for fuel, VinePair said. They then launched New Age Renewable Energy, the article added. Its $12.5 million project in New York stopped at 75 percent complete after a major investor's unexpected death.

How the King Ferry distillery came to make vodka

Zaydman read about the Lake Distilling facility in King Ferry, toured it, and thought it could work after retrofitting, VinePair said. As recently as 2020 New Age was distilling the area's whey strictly into industrial ethanol, including bulk sanitizer early in the pandemic, the article said. New Age Renewable Energy then became Cayuga Ingredients, by the same account.

Fermentation takes under 24 hours without enzymes before the whey is distilled five times under a vacuum, VinePair said. New York distillers paid around $3 a proof gallon for the 192-proof whey distillate, the article added. The company used about 3 percent of the whey in its area, by the same account.

Water, animal feed, and the bottle

Cayuga Ingredients says its proprietary yeast converts 100% of whey permeate into ethanol and that its filtration system produces five gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol. Its story began over fifteen years ago with a Wisconsin dairy scientist, the company adds. Whey from local cheese and yogurt producers is fermented and distilled into alcohol, and the process also yields high-protein animal feed, the Cayuga Clear website says. The Cayuga Clear website says the company bottles its products in PET. See the TTB label records for Cayuga Clear on this page.

Sources

• Cayuga Clear (cayugaclear.com). “HOME | Cayuga Clear.” Undated. https://www.cayugaclear.com/
• VinePair. “Could Chobani Yogurt Be the Key to America's Next Great Gins?” 8 March 2022. https://vinepair.com/articles/chobani-yogurt-gin/
• Cayuga Ingredients (cayugaingredients.com). “About - Cayuga Ingredients.” Undated. https://cayugaingredients.com/about/
• TTB Public COLA Registry via BUY.VODKA data snapshot (src/data/labels.json, local build 20 October 2026). “Cayuga Clear” label approvals. Local read-only query, 20 October 2026.

Produced At

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Related Questions

• Where is Cayuga Clear vodka made?
• Who makes Cayuga Clear vodka and who owns the brand?
• What proof is Cayuga Clear vodka?

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