THOUGHTS FROM
MAGGIE KIMBERLIssue 161 | Whisky Magazine 15THE CORN IDENTITY
From farmer-distiller to distiller-farmer
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hisky is an agricultural
product, borne of the
necessity to preserve excess
crops and make them easier for storage,
transport and trade. The distilled spirits
industry as we know it today grew
from this necessity, but thanks to the
farm-to-table movement there has been
a push to honour these agricultural
roots. Some of the larger distilleries
are experimenting with agricultural
programmes of their own, while craft
distillery operations are starting from
the grain up.
“I always tell people that it’s easier
to get corn across the country in a
conestoga wagon in jugs, than it is in
a bushel basket,” says Whiskey Acres
co-founder Nick Nagele.
Nagele, a farmer before all else,
partnered with neighbours Jim and
Jamie Walter to start Whiskey Acres
on the Walter family farm, which
the Walters have been farming since
the 1930s. Nagele’s family has been
farming on their farm since the 1860s.
The hammer mill used at the distillery
came from another neighbour’s barn.
It’s a true farming community.
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cent of what we grow here to operate
the distillery,” says Nagele. “That allows
us to be very selective about what we
keep for ourselves.”
“If you put your distiller hat on,”
Nagele continues, “instead of making
decisions for just gross quantity, you
can make decisions on hybrid quality to
manage things like disease resistance
and quality instead of just bushels per
acre. We can control the process from
the seeds to the product.”
At Whiskey Acres, controlled
experiments have shown which
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product for each of the varietals.
The Starlight Distillery also began as
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wine and later to distilled spirits.
“One of the key factors is that we
can control the quality of our grains
and fruits that go into our spirits,” says
Christian Huber. “We grow mostly
heirloom varieties on different soils
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is very similar to the same process that
we use for growing different varieties
of grapes. We keep the different
varieties from different locations on
our farm and we distil these varieties
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terroir. We were founded in 1843 and
have been farming our family estate
for 175 years. We know our terroir by
heart, the topography, soils, climate
and growing degree days and how it
affects the overall quality of our wines
and spirits.”
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have begun to realise the advantages to
growing corn themselves.
“There are advantages to growing
our own corn,” says Heaven Hill
American whiskey group productdirector, Susan Wahl. “There is a
growing interest in the concept that
the soil and general environmental
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or other natural resources grown in
an area – no different than for wine.
By growing this on our property
and adjacent to our warehouses and
bottling house, we hope that we can
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Michter’s also owns farmland in
Kentucky, where they partner with
local farmers to learn more about
growing practices, terroir and more.
“One of the biggest advantages is to
be able to do some really interesting
farm-to-distillery releases with our
own estate grown grain where we can
share more of the intimate details of
the process starting with the farm,
the non-GMO corn variety we grow,
and learning how our land and its
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master distiller Dan McKee. “Today’s
consumers want to know more about
the products, so working with a local
farmer allows us to learn more details,
explore non-GMO corn varieties and
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about soil condition, crop size, crop
rotation and farming practices.”
Controlling outcomes and learning
opportunities aren’t the only
advantages for distilleries growing
their own corn.
As Nagele puts it, “Is there a better
story for a distillery than to look out
the window and say ‘that’s where your
Bourbon grew’?”One of the biggest
advantages is to be
able to do some really
interesting releases