Dear Friends,
I don’t drink, so why did I found a whiskey company, Regeneration Distillery? Besides being a little nuts, which I can’t help, there are two reasons, really.
Let’s start with the first one, which is from the farm point of view:
To improve soil health, which means optimizing the soil and microbiome below ground, at Mt Folly, we keep plants growing year-round. This is most effectively done with small grains, and the one which is most tolerant of late fall planting is rye!
A field of rye, such as the one shown here, photosynthesizes all winter, when there are no leaves on the trees and the grass is brown. This process takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and turns it into below-ground sugars for plant roots and root mycorrhizae, tiny underground filaments which reach long and deep, forming a root-based underground network of food, sugars, carbon, and biologic activity. Meanwhile, the above ground green plant leaves release oxygen for us to breathe.
When rye covers fields, it captures carbon from the air and stores a portion of it in the plant and eventually in the soil, a process known as carbon sequestration. In sum, rye is a plant hero!
But what can you do with rye commercially, since farming is a rough tough business? There is only so much rye bread to be eaten in Winchester, Kentucky. Distill it!
So that’s how a teetotaler came to found a distillery.
Regeneration Distillery, which produces Boone Settlement Wheated Rye Whiskey, Cinnamon Whiskey and Sweet Potato Moonshine, is farmer-owned, and a delightful addition to our downtown. And that’s the second reason!
For environmental farming to be a success, it can’t plug in to the industrial food system. The solution is to revitalize small towns, develop a circular economy, with our distribution and customers nearby. That’swhy Boone’s Settlement Rye (which really is grown on land once owned by Daniel Boone) is only sold in Kentucky.
Laura