b'EXPERIMENTING for TASTE and COLORCraft distillers and brewers are looking for color and tastedifferent grain varieties provide that.Joe FunkMORE THAN 100years ago duringgrain? Traditionally, corn is used more to the U.S. Prohibition era, most localsfuel alcohol content. The rye and wheat knew where to get the best illicit home- were supposed to provide flavor. We brewed spirits (aka moonshine, whiteknow the French use different grapes to lightning or hooch). No longer a clan- make vastly different wines and brandy, destine, back-woods, "by the light of thewhich led us to believe that different moon" operation, today\'s brewmasterstypes of corn would give different types blend and finesse their mash recipe asof whiskey. As we started doing our carefully as a French winemaker does toresearch, the first grain we found beyond obtain a precise color and flavor for theiryellow dent was Bloody Butcher corn," products.Likarish recalls. Fifteen years ago, there was limitedSeed savers in Appalachia claim that diversity in American craft whiskey andthe origin of Bloody Butcher, an open-beer. That has all changed so that even apollinated heirloom variety, goes back casual, uninitiated consumer can identifyto when white settlers mixed their white a range of whiskey and beer flavors. Craftcorn with red corn, likely in Virginia in the distillers carefully blend different grainearly 1800s. mixtures to bring new, exciting flavors to"Moonshiners in the Appalachian their products.Mountains have been using Bloody "We bring a French philosophy ofButcher corn to make whiskey for a very winemaking to distilling whiskey," sayslong time. They use it specifically for its Ironroot Republic Head Distiller, Jonathanflavor. We ordered some to make whis-Likarish. "It is a collaboration betweenkey, says Likarish. For our first batch, French techniques and a local focus. Inwe had to order seed that my parents Texas, craft whiskey is mostly distilledthen grew on their farm in Illinois. They from yellow dent corn and hard redharvested it and hand shelled about 50 winter wheat. We began by producing apounds that we used to make our first North Texas flavor and then went out andtest batch. We fell in love with the flavors found some \'salt and pepper\' flavoring."it produced. That was the first corn we By law, the mash used to distill bour- used for its flavor components." bon must contain at least 51% corn. In ryeMagic Mana is the next variety bourbon, rye Is the flavoring grain. WheatJonathan and his brother Robert Likarish, is often used for flavor. Malted barley isIronroot Republic\'s General Gladhander, another common flavoring grain.tried. They say it tastes like sugar cook-"For our products, we wondered,ies coming off the still. Floriana flint corn what if we were to use corn as a flavoringfrom Italy is a variety with a cayenne kick 4/ SEEDWORLD.COMOCTOBER 2020'