Market Watch, April 2018

80 MARKET WATCH MARKETWATCHMAG COM APRIL 2018PHOTO BY TOP JILL NORTONcontent and more weight making for great Bourbon These varieties are released as single batches while the main Whiskey Acres Bourbon 45 a 750 ml is made with several rare hybrids of yellow dent corn The company ages its whiskey in a combination of 10 25 and 53 gallon barrels Later this year the distillery will release a 5 grain Bourbon made from a blend of yellow dent corn Oaxacan green corn wheat malted barley rye and oats The slogan at Whiskey Acres where the tasting room overlooks the crops is seed to spirit COO and vice president Nick Nagele fervently believes that different varieties end up producing different tasting spirits and predicts that consumers eventually will become connoisseurs of grains in the same way they appreciate the differences in grape varieties While visitors to the farm are beginning to catch on to this approach Nagele and the Walters hope to find a wider audience Were selling only in Illinois Nagele explains We have to build up our stocks and our portfolio so that when were ready to expand to other states which could come later this year we will have a reliable supply available National AmbitionsSome craft distillers have lofty goals for the future Chicagos CH Distillery for exam ple sold about 12000 cases last year and opened a new production plant in the citys Pilsen neighborhood with the capacity to produce 100000 cases a year The distillery now distributing to 13 states wants to be fully national within a year selling such offbeat products as its Aquavit 27 a 750 ml Amaro 30 and a coffee liqueur 30 thats made in partnership with a local roaster Charlie Solberg and his daughter Jenny Solberg Katzman opened Rhine Hall Distillery in Chicagos Kinzie Industrial Corri dor in 2013 Once a professional hockey player Charlie fell in love with fruit eau de vie while playing in Austria in the 1970s and eventually learned how to distill it Today Rhine Hall looks to spread Charlies enthusiasm for white fruit spirits to an Amer ican audience The distillery makes apple brandy 52 a 750 ml grappa 56 and a wide array of other fruit brandies When we first started a lot of people told us we couldnt survive without making whiskey gin and vodka Jenny says I told them that plenty of other people are already making whiskey gin and vodka We think our niche is a big advantage for us Indeed Rhine Halls biggest seller is a mango brandy 56 At Fox River Distilling in the western suburb of Geneva co owner Mike Orlando a former restaurant equipment salesman Distilling isnt limited to the city and suburbs of Chicago The city sits astride the nations breadbasket and local distill eries have made a practice of sourcing their grains as close to home as possible In that regard nobody beats Whiskey Acres Distilling Co in DeKalb Launched in 2014 the distillery sits about an hour outside of Chicago on the 2000 acre family farm of co founders and father son duo Jim and Jamie Walter The distillery gets all of its grains from the farm where it grows more than a dozen varieties of corn Some 99 of all American Bourbon is made from yellow dent corn but Whiskey Acres cultivates rare heirloom vari eties such as the dark red Bloody Butcher and Glass Gem often used for popcorn and the Mexican varietal Green Oaxacan Though each of them produces fewer bushels per acre than the classic yellow dent they carry higher starch Founded in 2011 F E W Spirits Sam Bielawski Skyler Retzlaff Steven Kaplan and founder Paul Hletko pictured top expressions range from Earl Grey tea infused gin to single malt whiskey smoked with cherry wood strawberry daiquiri above left Fewgroni right