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Bluegrass distillers often turn to Hoosier farmers
By Alex Davis
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ind -- Bourbon may be synonymous with Kentucky, but its main ingredient is rooted in the farm fields that blanket the southern half of Indiana.
According to federal law, at least 51 percent of the grain used to make straight bourbon must come from corn. And because of the large amount that Kentucky's distillers need, they often turn to people such as Jeff Trimpe, the owner of Elizabethtown Grain Inc., between Seymour and Columbus.
Every year, Trimpe sends close to 1.5 million bushels of corn -- about 15 square miles of harvested grain -- to Louisville-based Brown-Forman Corp. After being combined with rye, barley malt and water, it winds up in aging barrels that eventually become Old Forester and Early Times.
Brown-Forman is Trimpe's biggest client for corn. The whiskey market also is a critical buyer for other growers and suppliers in Bartholomew, Jackson, Decatur and surrounding counties.
"The best end-user for our area for the last 20 years has been the distilleries," Trimpe said, steering his farm truck past sprawling cornfields on a steamy afternoon.

Farmers receive up to 30 cents extra per bushel for corn that goes to the bourbon industry, chiefly because most of Kentucky's distillers insist that their grain doesn't come from genetically modified seed. That requirement is mostly due to consumer preferences outside the United States, where there is greater concern about food grown from seed that is altered to be resistant to insects or herbicides.
Chris Owens, who planted close to 1,000 acres of corn this year in Decatur County, said the premium price is enough incentive for him to continue growing crops that aren't genetically modified, even as many of his neighbors have made the switch. Owens said sending his harvest to nearby Elizabethtown Grain also is more practical than paying to have it shipped south in trucks to be loaded onto barges on the Ohio River.
Just as many of Kentucky's distillers have been in the whiskey business for multiple generations, some of their relationships with Hoosier farmers and elevator operators stretch back decades.
Trimpe, 49, said his father hauled corn for Early Times in the 1950s. Kenneth Kiel, a 74-year-old farmer in southern Bartholomew County, recalled some of the area's farmers selling corn to Kentucky in the 1940s -- at a time when moonshine still could be purchased in gallon jugs from the back of pickup trucks.
While some corn grown in Kentucky eventually makes its way into bourbon barrels, Indiana corn is attractive because of its far larger supply. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Indiana produced more than 840 million bushels of corn last year, more than five times the amount reported for Kentucky.
Most distillers in Kentucky receive corn from the same couple of suppliers every year. Heaven Hill Distilleries, the maker of Evan Williams bourbon, buys 1.2 million bushels of Indiana corn every year from three suppliers. One of them is Kolkmeier Bros. Feed & Grain Inc., located in tiny St. Paul, Ind., just outside Shelbyville.
In addition to providing an average of three truckloads of grain every day to Heaven Hill, John Kolkmeier, the company's president and majority owner, said he also supplies corn to Barton Brands and Maker's Mark.
Exactly how much of Indiana's corn makes its way into Kentucky bourbon is unclear -- the vast majority still goes to livestock feed and to create ethanol-based fuel. But many distillers say it's easily their biggest source.
Jim Beam, the leading bourbon in Kentucky by volume, uses corn from as many as three Indiana suppliers. Jerry Dalton, Beam's master distiller in Clermont, Ky., said he wasn't aware of any Kentucky corn that goes into his mash cookers.
"It would be so small that I wouldn't even know about it," Dalton said in an interview.
A typical bourbon recipe calls for 70 percent to 80 percent corn. After being mixed with other grains, fermented, aged and diluted to the proper proof level, a single bushel of corn produces about two dozen 750-milliliter bottles of whiskey.
Despite the massive amount of corn used in bourbon, it makes up a small slice of the overall cost of producing whiskey.
Jim Rutledge, the master distiller at Four Roses in Lawrenceburg, Ky., estimated that a 60 percent increase in the price of corn to $4 a bushel would translate into roughly 14 cents in extra costs for each bottle of finished bourbon. He said an increase that small could easily be offset by fluctuations in costs such as natural gas for heating. By comparison, the cost of a single charred oak barrel for aging is about $110.
Many of the Hoosier farmers who grow corn for the whiskey industry aren't familiar with such details, although that could change. Trimpe, the elevator owner, plans to bring a group of growers to the Brown-Forman distillery in Shively early next month for a tour and an intimate look at the cookers, fermenters and stills that are used to process their corn harvest.
Dennis and Dick O'Neal might be good candidates for the trip. The brothers grow corn on 1,500 acres a few miles from Trimpe's operation in Elizabethtown, and they've been supplying the whiskey industry since the early 1970s.
Sitting in the shade of a backyard patio, surrounded by green fields, Dick O'Neal said he takes pride in being able to support what he considers to be a local industry. And although he hasn't yet visited the place where his corn is turned into bourbon, the 55-year-old is already somewhat familiar with the end result.
"I've purchased a lot of product," he said, grinning. "Let's put it that way."
SOURCE: http://www.courier-journal.com