Market Watch, January 2020
38 MARKET WATCH MARKETWATCHMAG COM JANUARY FEBRUARY 2020Within a sprawling three green house site in Great Barrington Massachusetts a bounty of botanicals flowers and vegetables are grown Clustered on one table is angelica root joined by sprays of sunflower stalks nearby In another corner green peppers spill over their pots alongside plots of lemon verbena and lemongrass Outside the greenhouses in rich soil beds lining a gravel drive even more grows Blue Hubbard squash lavender licorice and other flora At some point much of it will be used by Berkshire Mountain Distillers either in cocktails at the tasting room or in one of the distill erys three stills The plants are just part of the distillerys farm to glass profile Berkshire Mountain Distillers BMD founder and master distiller Chris Weld also uses grains grown at neighboring farms as a base for all his spirits as well as water from a granite based spring beneath his home property in nearby Sheffield All told BMD is a leader in the farm to glass movement and Weld who owns 100 of the business values his independence Early InterestWeld took an unusually early interest in distillation While in middle school he stumbled upon the details of still construction while reading the Foxfire Series books which detail the tradi tions of Appalachian culture In eighth grade I had to pick a project Weld recalls I was torn between making a volcano with baking soda and vinegar or creating a pot still to make moonshine After some prod ding he convinced his mother to let him build the still but the project ended when she realized that owning and operat ing a still was a federal offense After that Welds distilling ambitions took a long hiatus He eventually moved from his native Westchester County in New York to Northern California where he started a family and embarked on a 21 year career as a physicians assistant in a Bay Area emergency room Eventually he was ready to return east and settled in southwestern Massachusetts in the mid 2000s The Weld familys home a farm built in the 1880s that includes both an apple orchard and the granite based natural BerkshiresSPIRIT OF THEFrom its small community in south central Massachusetts Berkshire Mountain Distillers has become renowned far and wideBY JULIA HIGGINS PHOTOGRAPHS BY JENNIFER MAYBerkshire Mountain Distillers varied portfolio launched with Ragged Rum and eventually came to include Ice Glen vodka Bourbon and New England corn whiskey decorative display pictured among other expressions
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