Whiskey's the Word at Judson & Moore
Recapping my first visit to the Chicago distillery, and other craft spirits news
New Fangled and Old Fashioned
For more than a year, I’d been trying to find time to visit Judson & Moore, a rising star on Chicago craft spirits scene that opened in 2022 in the Rockwell on the River complex in the Avondale neighborhood. I’ve tasted their excellent whiskeys and I would have stopped by last winter during Green City Market’s indoor season a couple of doors down, but their tasting room wasn’t yet open on weekends (it is now).
So when I received an invitation from Wagstaff Marketing to attend a small group tour and tasting last Wednesday (October 11), I jumped at the chance and thoroughly enjoyed my visit with the married founders of the distillery, Collin Moore and Elise Bergman.
Then, naturally, a couple of days after my long-delayed visit, I received an invitation to an event at Judson & Moore being staged by the Artisan Grain Collaborative, one of my favorite farming organizations, this Wednesday evening. So that will be two visits over a week.
Collin is an engineer who grew up in Tennessee, where whiskey is a big deal. Elise is a fashion and hospitality designer with Minnesota roots and a love for the Midwest. Around a decade ago, the couple decided they would like to find a way to work together, settled on the distillery idea and lined up Elise’s father, successful finance technology executive Judson Bergman, as a partner.
That the business became their passion project helped the couple persevere through a series of enormous setbacks.
They had only just closed a deal on the building that became the distillery in 2015 — a long-abandoned former leather tannery — when a fire caused extensive damage.
Then in October 2019, as the buildout was nearing completion, Elise’s father and her step-mother Mary Miller died when a wrong-way driver slammed into the taxi in which they were riding in San Francisco. This loss gave Collin and Elise second thoughts about moving ahead with the distillery, but decided it would be the best way to honor Judson Bergman.
Then came COVID. Yet even though the pandemic delayed the distillery’s opening, the owners found an upside. They had determined they would focus on aged whiskeys, skipping the clear spirits (such as vodka, gin and white whiskey) that many new distilleries have made to get products in consumers’ hands. And they also rejected the widespread practice of buying whiskey on the open market and bottling it with their label.
“So we needed a good couple years anyway…,” Collin said. “So it's like, well, let's just lay down as much whiskey as we can and let it age and we will go to market when we can. And so that's kind of how that COVID sort of motivated that decision.”
The result is a young but refined product that is local to the core. The distillery sources its organic grain in the Midwest, with most of it — including the Bloody Butcher corn in the Red Corn Bourbon — from Cow Creek Farm in the east-central Illinois community of Paxton (having already outgrown the on-site barrel-aging room, the distillery is storing some of its barrels at the farm).
The tour ended at the long bar in the tasting room and a lesson in how to make a perfect Old Fashioned (seen in the photo above). Perfectly simple and simply perfect.
Judson & Moore produces four expressions of whiskey: a Rye whiskey that they describe as their flagship, a Bourbon, that Red Corn Bourbon, and a Single Malt Whiskey. The distillery and the tasting room with its long bar are open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursdays and Friday, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. If you’re timing is good, you’ll be able to catch some live music.
And if you are super-anxious to go, don’t forget about that Artisan Grain Collaborative event from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. this Wednesday. Click below (then scroll down) to read all about it. And if you can get there a little early, check out the rest of the Rockwell on the River complex, which includes Metropolitan Brewing, an outlet for the Evanston-based barbecue mastery of Soul & Smoke, and Metropolis Coffee Company.
Journeyman Opens New Valparaiso Distillery
Congratulations to Bill and Johanna Welter, who on Saturday cut the ribbon opening the shiny, new $40 million Journeyman Distillery in Valparaiso, Indiana — a huge development for one of our region’s biggest craft spirits success stories.
The new site, dubbed The American Factory, is an overhaul of a 19th century building that long held a woolen mill. This follows the model of Journeyman’s original distillery, still going strong in Three Oaks, Michigan, which was built in a former corset and buggy whip factory.
The Valparaiso location, though, is three times as big as the Michigan site, has multiple restaurants and other amenities — and Journeyman’s first craft brewery.
It is full circle for Bill Welter, who grew up in a Valparaiso banking family and appeared to be on track for a career in the business. But Bill, a golfer, spent a summer caddying at famed St. Andrew’s golf course in Scotland, where he learned about the whiskey industry and decided that was what he wanted to do instead. After his apprenticeship at Chicago’s Koval distillery, he and Johanna opened Journeyman and built a thriving business.
I go way back with Journeyman, which produces a wide variety of spirits using organic Midwestern grain. The Michigan distillery was open for about six months in April 2012 when I visited (with Barb) to interview Bill Welter for a freelance story (one of my first food and beverage articles after we moved to Chicago). The photos above and below are from that visit.
I still have the collector set (below) of Journeyman rye and white whiskey that I purchased on that visit. I haven’t had the heart to open the bottles and drink the contents, but spirits, when handled correctly, don’t spoil, so maybe someday. Or not.
I regret that I wasn’t able to get away to attend this weekend’s Grand Opening in Valparaiso, but I’m going to schedule a visit soon. Can’t wait.
Distiller Job at Granor: Maximum Farm to Glass
I’m not sure if the audience for Local Food Forum includes any distillers seeking an exciting new adventure, but if you are one… or know one… here’s a heads up: Granor Farm, a regenerative farm in Three Oaks, Michigan, is starting a distillery and needs someone sharp to run it.
The distiller will have access to heirloom grains grown right on the farm. Granor also has a robust culinary program headed by Chef Abra Berens, a longtime friend who has been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award and is the author of three highly regarded cookbooks: Ruffage (vegetable-focused), Grist (grains), and Pulp (fruit).
Here’s the job description:
DISTILLER POSITION
Grow with Us!
We are hiring a distiller to help develop a diverse beverage program through experimentation, creative freedom, and a diversity of ingredients produced by Granor.
This Distiller position offers a unique opportunity to a qualified, creative, and self-motivated person to directly integrate distilling and farming, including participating in crop planning, orientated toward producing small batch spirits and liqueurs. The Distiller may use ingredients ranging from Rouge Bordeaux, an ancient grain, to Sweet Wormwood, both grown by Granor. In addition, the Distiller will have access to wines and a variety of local fruits grown or sourced by Granor providing the Distiller with the base ingredients to produce fortified wines and non-alcoholic beverages.
At Granor, our small distillery is literally surrounded by the certified organic farm where the ingredients used to make spirits and liqueurs are grown. On the farm we also have a dedicated botanical greenhouse where a variety of herbs, botanicals, flowers and fruits are grown for use in developing formulas.
Farmers… Scaling Up? This Field Day’s for You
Northern Illinois Young Farmers (NIYF) is presenting a Fall Field Day titled “Lessons from Year One of Scaling Up: Infrastructure, Crops and Sales, Oh My.” The event will take on Saturday, November 4, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Earthlore Farm in Beaverville, Illinois (about 70 miles south of downtown Chicago).
Here’s the description from the organizers:
Explore your small farm dream through a firsthand look at how a diversified produce farm south of Chicago is evolving and scaling up!
This interactive field day will look at the tools, techniques and structures Earthlore Farm is using to develop, scale up and grow more local food. Walk the land, hear about what's working, what's a challenge, and connect with other aspiring farmers as you explore your own farm dream/project. There will be a concentration on how infrastructure (greenhouse, pack shed, cooler, irrigation, tractor and implements) has been recently developed and a look at the tools (hand tools, 2-wheel and 4-wheel tractor) being used to prepare soil. Some discussion will also happen about cropping sequences and how the available tools are adapted to the crop selection. Lunch will be provided.
About the Farm: Earthlore Farm LLC is a small-scale produce farm growing a diversity of local produce for a 50-member CSA and various wholesale partnerships. It sits on 7.5 acres of sandy loam about 70 miles southeast of Chicago in northeastern Iroquois County (just south of Pembroke in Kankakee County) and is nestled between multiple tracts of conservation and DNR land. Ben Jaffe and Caitlin Flannery (and their two young kids) have been developing the farm over the last 6 years but recently have scaled up operations after Ben made a shift, leaving 12 years of non-profit community-based urban farming (serving as Director at Chicago Lights Urban Farm, Instructor at Windy City Harvest and more). Ben will share his experiences building while growing, managing sales and employees, and searching for balance amidst the overwhelm.
Please email us if financial assistance would help make it possible for you to attend this event: northernillinoisyoungfarmers@gmail.com
Bob’s World, and Welcome To It
The best sunsets are not on perfectly clear days, when the twilight colors fade quickly. Rather, the most vivid colors come on days when there are at least some on clouds. The more complex the cloud patterns, the more astounding the sky show.
Such was the case on Sunday (October 15). The sun disappeared for a while behind a solid bank of clouds, but reappeared just above the horizon. As the sun disappeared, it through bright orange and red hues on the striated lower clouds. The effect, as you can see, was stunning.