Great whiskey isn't made, it's grown

If you like great whiskey, consider homegrown Illinois corn your best friend. Great corn makes great whiskey and that's exactly why two local farm families, the Walters and the Nageles, built a distillery on the Walters' home farm in DeKalb. Their business is called Whiskey Acres, and it's a true seed-to-spirit distillery.

With the release of the newest video from Illinois Corn Marketing Board's 360 series, viewers can get an up-close and personal look at how Whiskey Acres sustainably grows great corn and makes great whiskey.

"Great whiskey isn't made, it's grown. Ours is grown from sustainably raised corn a renewable resource and finished in a sustainably designed distillery," said Jamie Walter, president and CEO of Whiskey Acres Distilling Co.

"This may come as news to many Chicagoans, but Illinois is blessed with some of the best soil and water on earth," he adds. "The water on our farm is perfect it's naturally filtered through a limestone aquifer found deep under our land."

To protect the soil and water for future generations of Walter family farmers, they use fewer pesticides and fertilizers to grow corn.

They recycle the spent grains or leftover corn from the distillation process as livestock feed and use livestock manure as fertilizer. That's all part of the circle of sustainable agriculture.

When building their brand new distillery, they took advantage of best practices in sustainable design too.

"Our distillery is engineered to use very little water. In fact, we use less than 1,000 gallons of water a day, which is a fraction of the industry standard. And, we recycle most of the water we use in our cooling systems," said Walter.

Want to know more about how great whiskey is made from Illinois homegrown corn? Get in the whiskey spirit with a quick virtual tour of Whiskey Acres.

Find more local Illinois farmers and their stories at watchusgrow.org.

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