E132: Custom Distilling at Flyover Whiskey

Senior Editor for The Progressive Farmer Joel Richenberger was excited to find some time recently to get out to visit Joe Knobbe and Devon Birchem at Flyover Whiskey, a distillery and farm in West Point, Nebraska. These two recently purchased a nearby distillery and have decided to do something novel with it– take your corn and make custom whiskey. Today, Joel will tell us all about the operation he saw, the motivation behind some of the businesses moved, and discuss how Flyover’s model fits into the trend of farmers, especially young and beginning farmers, building on-farm businesses that go beyond commodity grain or livestock production. We’ll talk whiskey by corn variety, details of the distilling process, and challenges the operation has faced.