Whiskey Acres Distilling Co. is a rare grain-to-glass distillery in DeKalb, Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago. The distillery’s president and CEO, Jamie Walter, was born and raised in the town. He’s a fifth-generation farmer and a former attorney who runs the business with his wife, Kristen. Growing up, he helped his dad grow corn, soybeans, and small grains here, in a region they dub “the Napa Valley of corn.”
In 2013, Jamie convinced his father and their business partner to create an estate distillery on the family property. The farm philosophy permeates their award-winning “seed to spirit” approach, including growing their own grains. Producing roughly 12,000 cases annually, they distill bottled-in-bond bourbon, rye whiskey, heirloom grain bourbon, and vodka.
In his own words, Jamie Walter tells us about his influences, how he promotes his spirits, and what makes his spirits unique.
Tell us about how you came to launch a distillery.
In 2012, my dad, Jim Walter — who I also farm with — and I were interested in diversifying our farming operation in order to extract more value per acre from the grain we were growing on our fifth-generation family farm. We are located 60 miles due west from downtown Chicago, and at that time leased much of our 2,000 acres of farmland in DeKalb, Illinois, the birthplace of hybrid seed corn.
Due to urban sprawl, we were seeing land that we previously farmed being sold for development. We needed to figure out how to extract more revenue from fewer acres. We looked at various vertically integrated processes — including milling bakery flours and cornmeal, popcorn, specialty grains, etc. Ultimately, in part due to our background in corn seed breeding and sales, as well as some prior experience in California winemaking that I had, we settled on whiskey — bourbon in particular — as being our path to success.
We hired Dave Pickerell, former master distiller at Maker’s Mark, to teach us the distilling ropes and brought on a third partner, Nick Nagele, with a background in both agriculture and public relations. The distillery was officially chartered in 2013, and our first spirits rolled off the still in late 2014.
What makes your spirits different from others?
We are the first estate distillery in Illinois. With our understanding of corn genetics, I can assure you that we have more experience understanding the differences between varieties of corn than any other distiller on the planet. Much like how grape varietals affect wine flavor — cabernet sauvignon vs. pinot noir for example — we suspected that different varieties of yellow dent corn, most commonly used in bourbon production, could affect bourbon flavor in a similar manner.
We set about researching that very topic and sent our distiller, Rob Wallace, back to school at Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh to complete his master’s thesis on that very thing. I can assure you, grain varieties matter. However, very few distilleries grow their own grain like we do. Instead they buy bulk commodity corn as cheaply as possible and produce bourbon the same way some large wineries buy bulk commodity grapes to make red table wine. It doesn’t make it bad, but it’s fairly homogeneous and lacks the distinctive flavor characteristics that different corn varieties can provide.
That’s why most of our competitors focus far more on barrel influence, age statements, yeast strains, and mash bills to try to differentiate themselves. We grow all of our own corn, wheat, rye, and, increasingly, barley. Then we store each variety separate from one another to preserve their individual identities. It makes a tremendous difference. And the proof is in the glass. We’ve won countless major distilling awards and some of our products are in such high demand that they sell out in a manner of hours.
How does opening and running a distillery in Illinois inform your business and style?
Illinois is not known for its business-friendly climate. We certainly had our number of challenges trying to get up and running. Before returning to the farm and then later opening the distillery, I practiced law for a firm in the local area. I often refer to myself as a “recovering attorney.” Fortunately, despite many challenges, that legal training was helpful in helping us persuade local officials to approve our local zoning and building permits. While I consider myself a pretty easygoing person, I have an analytical and advocacy side to my personality that helped me then and continues to help me now, as we very deliberately maneuver in an increasingly crowded craft spirits market.
What do you feel are the key elements of promoting your spirits and brand within the industry and to the broader world?
As most craft distillers well know, the easy part of distilling is the making of the spirits themselves. The marketing, distribution, and sales side of the business can be eye-opening and a bit humbling, to say the least. While we have limited distribution in California, Nebraska, and Indiana, we currently heavily focus on Illinois — in particular Chicago and the nearby suburbs. First, we focus on our quality. That’s table stakes in our opinion. Our juice is good and we’re proud of it.
Then we focus on our story. It’s real and we try to be very transparent. We don’t engage in exaggeration, blowing smoke, or stretching the truth. Our industry is often guilty of that, and consumers don’t like it when they feel they’ve been duped. We explain that grain matters and why. We encourage our consumers — and our distributors and key accounts — to come visit with us right on the farm. We have a beautiful visitors center here that is open to the public. They get to not only see the distillery in action, they can see the grain growing in the adjacent fields, smell the fresh air, taste the water from our limestone aquifer, see and feel the dark, fertile soil between their fingers. And then taste the fruits of our labors. We often say, “Great whiskey isn’t made. It’s grown.”
How do you envision the world of small-batch spirits/craft distilling evolving in the coming years?
I think we are on the cusp of some challenging times, if I’m being honest. It is becoming a bit crowded and there is a lot of young whiskey inventory sitting in barrels from recently created or expanded distilleries. To be successful in the long run I think you will have to be truly unique and have really high quality spirits. Being new or local won’t resonate the way it did 5–10 years ago. And we have to remember that ultimately craft distilleries are businesses. I think we will see a winnowing of distilleries based on the quality of the liquid in the bottle, the authenticity of their stories, and the business acumen and financial capitalization of those who are running them.
For us, we have found a growing niche in heirloom and specialty varieties of corn. We have some exceptionally unique and popular offerings, from the industry’s first blue popcorn bourbon, to bourbons made out of Oaxacan green corn, glass gem, bloody butcher, etc. They all have very distinct and uniquely exciting flavor profiles. Coupled with our bottled-in-bond bourbon and rye whiskeys, they are really gathering a loyal fan base. In a few years, we will be releasing a brand new bourbon from a new corn variety that we invented and crossbred ourselves using an heirloom yellow dent corn with a long and rich distilling history here in the U.S. We cross it with an exceptionally rare and flavorful red flint corn we found in Tuscany, Italy. We are in the process of securing intellectual property protection on it and can’t wait to release it to the public. It’s truly outstanding!
I also think you will see a growing interest in what we call estate whiskey — basically whiskey made by farmers from grain grown on their own land. There are not many of us, but consumers are drawn to our uniqueness, quality, authenticity, sustainability, and transparency.
What is your philosophy and style — and your biggest influences — when it comes to whiskey?
Everything starts with the grain. We call our process “seed to spirit” because we believe everything starts with the seed we plant as farmers. Dave Pickerell taught us the importance of quality control and standard operating procedures, and that helps inform all that we do once we harvest that grain and ready it for fermentation and distillation.
We are patient. We have never sourced a drop of whiskey and only use our own grain grown on our own farm for distillation. We value the relationships we’ve formed with our peer estate distillers, too. Places like Far North Distilling and Frey Ranch. Together we’re working with the University of Kentucky to help lead the charge through the formation of the Estate Whiskey Alliance. We hope to promote distilleries like ours and transparently educate consumers about what that means and why it matters.
