Regardless of rising up on a multigenerational farm in jap Colorado, Stephanie and Felicia Ohnmacht by no means deliberate to enter the household enterprise. From a younger age, their mother and father insisted they enroll in faculty and pursue careers outdoors of agriculture, in fields that weren’t topic to the whims of Mom Nature.
They each did for some time. After attending the College of Colorado in Boulder, Stephanie, the center of three kids, went into the telecommunications business and Felicia, the youngest, labored in undertaking administration for a semiconductor firm. For a time, the household property in Burlington, known as Gergen Farms, felt like a relic from their previous that they’d should deal with as soon as their mother and father handed.
“We have been fairly disconnected from it,” Felicia mentioned. “We toss ourselves beneath the bus as a result of we don’t know the best way to drive a tractor.”
However in 2015, the 2 sisters returned to the household farm with a bottle of whiskey and – Felicia’s phrases – a “hairbrained concept” to promote native grains to the growing variety of craft distilleries popping up in Colorado. The 2 based Whiskey Sisters Supply to assist flip native corn, wheat, and rye into regionally made spirits.
That they had no concept that they might save their household’s heritage within the course of.
The Ohnmachts’ ancestors first laid roots on the Jap Plains round 1907, when their great-grandfather’s wagon broke down close to the border of Colorado and Kansas. As legend has it, he threw down his hat, stomped round and determined this spot was the right place to finish his journey west. The unique homestead nonetheless resides there, although it’s undergone many additions and renovations over time, Felicia mentioned. A few of the authentic wagon wheels have been repurposed as lighting fixtures inside.
Stephanie, Felicia and their eldest sister Renee grew up in a separate home constructed subsequent door to the unique homestead, on the fringe of the two,200-acre plot. The 2 youngest ladies, who’re three years aside, have been identified to combat typically of their youth, however you wouldn’t be capable to inform by the jesting rapport they’ve now.
For greater than 100 years, Gergen Farms’ fundamental crops have been wheat and corn, the latter of which is what landed the Whiskey Sisters Provide their first shopper, Al Legal guidelines of Laws Whiskey House in Denver. Honestly, Stephanie mentioned it was a dialog with Legal guidelines, who was searching for locally-grown grains, that impressed your entire idea for her firm.
“We had locked down all of our small grains for taste, however we couldn’t discover corn. Nobody would promote us native corn,” mentioned Legal guidelines. After assembly Stephanie and distilling a couple of check batches, Legal guidelines Whiskey Home turned the Whiskey Sisters’ first shopper, even earlier than they inked their model title.
Ten years and innumerable kilos of corn later, Legal guidelines Whiskey Home nonetheless makes use of the plump and candy grain from Burlington. “We love to do enterprise with folks that we like and have nice, moral backgrounds,” Legal guidelines mentioned. “We contemplate them like household.”
As soon as Whiskey Sisters Provide was up and operating, its homeowners let native distillers dictate what to plant. That’s how they ended up with sturdy rye fields, a lot to the shock of their neighbors.
“Folks have been very skeptical of us rising rye,” Felicia mentioned. “Rye, in our space, is taken into account a weed. It’s onerous to regulate. In case you get an excessive amount of of it in your wheat, the co-op will dock you and you’re going to get much less cash to your product.”
Right now, the corporate sells quite a lot of grains – together with blue corn, pink winter wheat, oats, and gluten-free choices like millet and sorghum – to greater than two dozen Colorado spirits makers from the Entrance Vary to the Western Slope. The farm additionally grows some edibles, resembling kidney beans and popcorn.
Felicia, who oversees the farm’s day-to-day operations, mentioned that Whiskey Sisters Provide accounts for a couple of third of the grain allocation. Many of the roughly 16 million kilos it harvests every year is bought to the native co-op, ranchers and feed tons.
Nonetheless, Whiskey Sisters Provide helped deliver Gergen Farms again from the brink of chapter – unbeknownst to Stephanie and Felicia on the time they received began.
Pondering again to childhood, the sisters may generally inform issues have been tenuous, particularly when storms have been within the forecast. They recall becoming a member of their grandmother in a ritual of praying round burning palms, clutching rosaries in hopes the hail would circumvent their fields. Nevertheless it wasn’t till 2020, when Felicia began managing the farm, that she realized the funds have been in dire straits.
“We didn’t sit across the desk consuming whiskey determining how we will earn more money for the farm,” mentioned Stephanie, who additionally nonetheless works in telecommuncations. “We joke that grandma had been lifeless for nearly precisely 5 years at this level, so we would have liked some divine intervention on that one.”
The truth that whiskey saved the farm is ironic, to say the least. Alcohol was forbidden within the Ohnmacht family, a normal set by their grandfather, a churchly man, and carried on by their mom. Plus, their father was the deacon of the native Catholic congregation – all of the extra cause to take care of a saintly way of life.
When Stephanie and Felicia first pitched their mother on the concept of promoting grain to distilleries, she explicitly rejected the proposition. “Having grandpa’s grain in booze … appeared in opposition to how she was raised,” Stephanie mentioned.
The ever-tenacious sisters, nonetheless, continued with their plan anyway. It wasn’t till they introduced the matriarch with a plan to promote grain for a check run with Legal guidelines Whiskey Home – and the corresponding examine – that she got here onboard.
During the last decade, Whiskey Sisters Provide has grown not solely its buyer roster, but in addition its mission. The corporate has embraced its function as an advocate for native farmers and helps dealer offers between metropolitan distilleries in different states, like Texas and Utah, and their native growers.
A part of that evolution was, admittedly, born out of necessity. Whiskey Sisters Provide has weathered the identical COVID-boom and post-pandemic bust cycles because the spirits business on the entire and commenced courting new sources of income to maintain its operations. However now that the ladies are reattached to the farm, they plan to see it via.
“We proceed to help one of the best we will, the place we will, as individuals decelerate manufacturing or shut their doorways or promote their enterprise,” Stephanie mentioned. “However we’re right here for the lengthy haul. The farm’s not going anyplace.”
“We’re not going anyplace,” Felicia added.
