GROW YOUR OWN
The title ‘farmer-distiller’ brings to mind someone in heavy boots, with a tractor and a lot of land. Somewhere on that land is a barn, which has one corner kept warm in the winter by a bubbling copper still. Unfortunately, the term ‘farm distillery’ has become clouded by recently enacted state laws that dilute its meaning to encompass any distillery sourcing materials from farms within the same state. Thus, a whiskey maker may operate a certified New York State Farm Distillery, but keep shop in Brooklyn, setting foot on neither farm nor field.
To counter this, the term being written into books now to refer to those growing grain and turning it into whiskey is ‘estate distillery,’ which for many may conjure up images of wine-and-cheese receptions.
“Estate is a big term, obviously, in wine. It means that you have total control over everything,” says Colby Frey of Frey Ranch Farmers & Distillers. “But in the distilling world, there’s all kinds of distilleries that call themselves…estate. They call their property the estate… The estate term in the distilling world doesn’t mean the same as it does in the wine world.”
All of the grain Frey Ranch converts into whiskey is grown on its property. Frey Ranch dedicates about 500 of the 2,500 acres it cultivates to growing wheat, rye, barley and corn for whisky, controlling the process from before germination until bottling.
“None of the ingredients have ever left our possession until you take them home,” says Frey, explaining that his team have total control of production from seed selection to bottling. This encompasses land-management practices such as fertilising and irrigation; before cultivating, harvesting, milling, mashing,
