The founder of award-winning Wood Hat Spirits, promoter of ancient varieties of whiskey’s cheapest ingredient, says in the future everyone must have their own corn.

You don’t know jack about these topics compared to Gary Hinegardner: Yellow Dent corn, Bacillus thuringiensis, Bloody Butcher corn, Orange Flint corn, the molecular structure of Pecan Wood staves, CRISPR, sprinkler irrigation in India, Blue Corn F1 hybrid corn, sustainable corn cooking, and the economics of whiskey ingredients.

His warning: What you don’t know will hurt you.

Gary Hinegardner is the founder of award-winning Wood Hat Spirits in New Florence, Missouri. His ZZ Top beard is unforgettable. But Hinegardner’s epic sartorial signature is his hand-hewn, tree-born chapeau.

But Gary is no fashionista. Instead, he is the Pied Piper of heritage corn. Heed the Piper: Craft distillers without a unique corn story will die, and die lonely.

Hinegardner is an agronomist who started his corn love story during his three years as a 1960s Peace Corps volunteer promoting the green agricultural revolution in India’s arid Dickens Plateau, in a Karnataka town called Jamakhandi. There, he and his wife of 45-plus years, Katie, toiled and learned to love the crops.

“I even speak Kannada, the local language, which surprises a lot of people,” Hinegardner explains in his Missouri accent. “Bringing sprinkler irrigation to southern India was our big innovation. That’s where we learned that crop selection is important, which forms local tastes. What people eat and drink at home is the last thing that people will change when they move somewhere. That lesson translates to Wood Hat. That’s how we get customers. People taste our whiskey, and that’s their home taste. People are loyal to our taste, and that’s how it works. Taste starts with the main ingredient, which is blue corn for us. Same as grapes for wine.”

Bacillus thuringiensis

Google “Bacillus thuringiensis” and your screen will fill with ads for “Bt,” an organic insecticide that controls caterpillars and core borers. Bt kills by unraveling a crystalline protein in the insects’ digestive tracts that quickly starves them to death.

Genetically modified Yellow Dent is a “”Bt corn,” genetically modified to be pest-resistant. Today, it is the predominant corn type used in our food, in ethanol fuel, in whiskey distilling and to feed livestock. Yellow Dent corn is, in Hinegardner’s parlance, “An insecticide on a stalk. The FDA classifies it as a pesticide. If you’re a cook, why would you put a pesticide in your food? If you’re a distiller, why would you put it in your still?”

As an agronomist, Hinegardner will tell you that Bt corn also poses an environmental risk. The US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA requires that farmers who plant Bt corn must also plant 5%-to-20% “refuge” or non-Bt corn, to harbor vulnerable pests to slow evolution of pesticide resistance.

Yet the distiller-agronomist is not just opposed to the GMO strain for its ecological risks. He also dislikes the dominant corn strain in today’s distillery supply chain because of how it tastes. The whiskey taste signature of Yellow Dent, Hinegardner asserts, is a burn in the back and the front of the mouth. Old-school whiskey drinkers have become accustomed to the discomfortm — what he calls “fast and rough.” But the new generation of whiskey drinkers, he observes, want something “slow and smooth.”

“Blue corn really delivers that,” the Wood Hat founder observes. “It’s the ultimate in smooth, which is good for people with heartburn. Bloody Butcher red corn has a heavy spicy finish that lasts a long time. Corn profiles are so varied. We know that ingredients matter in wine, brandy and beer. We’ve been locked into Yellow Dent for so long. The red meat and fuel industries dictate what distillers have to make whiskey from. But Yellow Dent will not hold up to the changing taste profile. Now consumers are finding more options that are based in flavors from heritage corns. And thanks to people like me who are growing heritage corns, distillers have more choices than just Yellow Dent. We are growing 60 different blue corns, and 10 Orange Flints, a variety grown on 6 continents but not America.”

Heritage corn, in Hinegardner’s opinion, is one of a craft maker’s biggest opportunities to grab new consumers. “I was on a podcast last night with a big plant making 1,300 barrels a day, using Yellow Dent. If his customers wanted something smooth, he can’t change. The big guys create niches for craft guys. If you walk into Jack Daniels there are 29 people on their board [of directors]. Craft has 6 to 7 years until the big boys start using the same corn as us, or creating their own variety of corn with CRISPR or similar genetic modification technology. The big boys don’t dare talk about it today, but just wait. They’re grinding 60 semi-trucks per day of Yellow Dent, so [heritage corn is] not an option for them. Big boys need the craft guys, because we’re their tomorrow. Ours is much better tasting corn than theirs. Whiskey out of cow and pig feed is not gonna be the future. What if all the wineries were still using concord grapes? Similar situation.”

Adding by Subtracting

Corn is not the Wood Hat founder’s only favorite crop. “I’ve also messed with wood all my life,” he admits. He learned the art of turning a wood hat on a lathe from the Michelangelo of wood hats, Johannes Michelson, “There are only three people in the world who can turn a wood hat,” Hinegardner observes, “The wood has to perform to fit a person’s head, which is not straight forward. It’s kinda like making whiskey. When you’re turning a hat, you’re trying to carve away everything that’s not a hat. With whiskey, you’re getting rid of all the things that are not whiskey.”

For nearly two decades, Hinegardner worked with wood at Independent Stave, world’s largest barrel maker. “They do lots of molecular studies of the interaction of wood and alcohol,” he notes. “As a result, I know how long-chain molecules interact with different woods, which led to innovations like finishing some of our products in smaller Pecan Wood barrels. Understanding how different barrel sizes and woods and chars impact the molecular level is really important.”

The Oil-Heated Still Story

But the wood story doesn’t stop there. Wood Hat’s stills are heated with scrap wood from a neighboring cooperage, with the most ingenious sustainable cooking technology in the craft spirit business. Outside Wood Hat’s still barn is a large wood-fired tank oven with an internal tank filled with high-grade cooking oil. The wood fire heats the cooking oil to 400 degrees, which is pumped into 96 feet of coils inside the 550 gallon Vendome-modified hybrid still to heat the mash and deliver condensed head, tails and hearts.

“It’s pretty safe for employees because it can’t burn the mash and never exceeds 350 degrees inside the still and has no high pressure steam or oil,” the master distiller says. “We run 40 hours a week, cook two days Thursday and Friday, set over the weekend, and distill on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is our ‘oh shit’ day. If something happens on distillation, we can fill another batch.”

Hinegardner’s cooking innovation was not danger-free. “A while back we had an employee who thought it was a good idea to max out the fire box,” he remembers. “We had a hell of a fire after lunch that vaporized our oil. Then the fire ran up the extension cord and caught the building on fire. The employee was happy that he put out the fire. But I terminated him because of his ‘at least you didn’t die’ attitude. Not dying is good, but that’s not our only goal. He thought he fixed it, but he started the situation, so he’s gone.”

Cornspiration

Alongside craft distilling’s nine most-inspiring books covered elsewhere in this issue of Distiller Magazine, most craft careers have been motivated by thought leaders such as Balcones founder Chip Tate, ADI founder Bill Owens, Wilderness Trail Distilling’s Pat Heist, Darek Bell and Andrew Webber of Corsair, several large distillery management programs, and a few distilling schools. Hinegardner shares several of these influences. In 1983, he attended an ethanol-production course at Colby Community College in Colby, KS, one of the few in the country. He began experiments in distilling that same year. He had to stop because he ran out of cash. But he didn’t stop yearning for learning.

“In India and later in Russia, I learned that crops make a society,” he says. “Then from my work at the barrel company over 16 years I learned that wood transforms the distilled product. I met Chip Tate [founder of Balcones] who showed me that blue corn makes a better whiskey. He had a specific method for roasting the corn, which I eventually evolved into a new method [that skipped the roasting]. I met Pat Heist [Wilderness Trail Distillery founder, whose infusion mash and sweet mash processes and proprietary yeast blends have proven to be significant innovations]. Pat taught me that if you don’t need it, don’t put it in there. If you’re gonna include it, have a damn good reason why. He’s a science guy. That’s what I am too.”

Around that same time, Hinegardner met ADI founder Bill Owens at an early ADI event. “When I met him [2008], ADI didn’t know how to coordinate the buses for distillery tours. So when I finally found the bus, there was only one seat left, and that’s next to Bill Owens. We rode in the bus together to a distillery in Indiana. Bill was the first guy I met. I thought ‘holy shit, I’m sitting right next to Bill Owens.’ Bill has been the glue that’s held the [craft distilling] movement together with books and events and community. And now the movement is worth many billions, and is a big part of the future of the beverage industry.”

Learning from others taught the Wood Hat founder that running a craft distillery involves multiple skills. “That’s why I kicked off the Missouri Craft Distiller Guild,” he says. “It’s like herding cats. Strong, opinionated people who can all teach each other something. It’s like what Bill Owens [on a national and international level with ADI] has somehow been able to do, keep people heading in the right direction. I think [ADI’s success is] because Bill is A.D.D, and dyslexic, which are skills that come in handy, since he can think about the mass rather than just one person.”

In Hinegardner’s experience, the three drivers behind the craft distilling movement are science, tradition, and folklore. “I’m more of a science guy,” he admits. “I don’t have five generations of moonshiners in my family tree. I’m not bound by those things, so I gravitate to science. Many in craft are tied by folklore or tradition [which includes traditional and habitual supply chain reliance on Yellow Dent corn], which is a big ball and chain.” Overcoming that traditional habit is the promise of craft’s future.

Corn-omics

“Corn makes a difference,” Gary says. “We now make nearly all our whiskey from cow and pig feed [GMO Yellow Dent No 1 and No 2 sweet corn]. Nobody other than a few people are focusing on the main ingredient. Corn in whiskey is as important as apples are to apple brandy, and grapes are to wine, each with hundreds of options.”

According to the USDA, almost 40% of US corn production is used in ethanol fuel production, 2% used by whiskey distillers, and the rest is used in food or for strategic reserve.

In whiskey, other than water, corn is the largest and cheapest ingredient. Between 3% and 5% of a whiskey bottle’s input cost is corn, amounting to $0.40 to $1.20 per bottle, the variation dependent largely on transportation costs. Corn costs less than the average stopper or label, and less than one-quarter of the cost of the bottle. Hinegardner’s mission is to change distillers’ focus to the quality of their largest non-water ingredient. By paying another 1% of the cost of input by using heritage corn, the product’s quality, taste, and experience can be boosted 25% to 50%, which translates to more consumers, and more product enthusiasm. Thus it is with the cliché about accountants who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Yellow Dent corn costs a little less, but is worth far less. Hindegardner’s admonition: Accountants be damned, put heritage corn in your still.

“But we don’t look at options,” the Wood Hat founder explains. For the past three years he has been working with the University of Missouri on micro distilling analysis, using a bullets-before-cannonballs approach to use minimal amounts of material and to make judgments before going to scale. Similarly, the USDA studies on heritage corn are at an early stage, but when they publish, the findings will be shared with the agricultural community at large.

The Future

It is no secret that the Wood Hat founder is actively selling his distillery in order to focus on heritage corn full-time. Before a standing-room-only audience at the ADI Conference in September 2021 in Louisville, the last slide in Gary’s keynote presentation read: “After 10 years, 398 tons of corn, $2,763,000 in sales, it is time for me to step aside. Wood Hat Spirits is for sale. I will concentrate on better corn.”

As of press time, while there are several active discussions underway, a final deal is pending.

When asked if this is a happy moment, Gary was circumspect. “The time is here. I want to do another thing well. And I can’t do both at the same time. Several people want to do the distillery, and have the money. But there are not many people who can approach corn for distilling like me. I’m an agronomist. Not many out there who can connect corn and whiskey and transition an entire industry back to heirloom corn.”

Asked what he would do differently if he were starting a new distillery today, Gary answered with the confidence of a futurist. “I’d move to a bigger city with more stores and bars. It would have been more prudent to not use distributors. I wouldn’t have to give up have my margin to haul it.”

On the other hand, he realizes he did a lot right. “We were sustainable before it was cool. We burn scrap wood, the industry’s only wood-burning still. We use geothermal cooling to heat the building. We don’t own a chiller. We don’t dewater the mash. We go directly to livestock. Cows are good at one thing, which is cow shit. We spend no energy getting the water out, cows do that for us.”

Among his biggest challenges? “Jealousy was my biggest speed bump,” Hinegardner admits will all the forthrightness of Kim Kardashian. “Twice people got jealous of what I did and did me lots of harm. People love to kick the guy off the mountain. Not guarding against jealousy was my biggest problems.”

In 2019, Gary grew 19 different corn varieties. In 2021, 129. His instruction to the next generation of craft distillers? “The variety is the thing, it’s not just one. Craft distillers with a unique corn story will have higher margin, higher volume, and higher value. The craft distiller that doesn’t have a corn story will be S-O-L. You can only read about swimming so long, you’ve gotta jump in the pool eventually. Find a variety you can wrap your arms around, even if you have to make it yourself with CRISPR.”

— Jay Whitehead is the editor of Distiller Magazine. All photo credits are
© Andrew Faulkner, andrew@andrewfaulkner.com.

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Jay Whitehead has founded and run 15 investor-backed media, tech and social enterprises, raised $100+ million from investors, and managed 5 liquidity events. He is an author, faculty member at The Negotiation Institute, and served on the board of Harvard University’s Sustainability & Environmental Management program. Jay earned a BA from UCLA and a Strategic Finance certificate from the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Jay@LeagueNetwork.com.