With everything we’re doing to ensure we grow the highest quality grains, we can’t imagine taking the risk of degrading that standard with imperfect distillation. Quality starts in the fields with farming, it is preserved in fermentation, and it is refined by distillation.

“First you invest 130 days in ensuring your grain grows in ideal health and balance on your field. Then you need another 5 days to shepherd the grain through fermentation. You don’t want to destroy it all in a few hours of flawed distilling,” says Reisetbauer.

The system we have at Branchwater is the culmination of Hans’ own relentless trial-and-error design experience and peerless expertise in distillery systems design. Tiny modifications to equipment and process all along the way from grain to spirit add up to a huge step-up in quality.

One of the many challenges in farming is that you only have one chance per year to try something new and see if it works, so our path in farming doesn’t have a horizon, it is a continuous journey of learning, a culmination of experience.

Please see the section on “Land Stewardship” for more information on our farming techniques and philosophy, but the basic truth is this: It all starts in the field. Nothing has a greater impact on the quality of a spirit than the living soil that nurtures the grain. A healthy, living soil requires biodiversity and, we believe, a commitment to organic principles. Not only is regenerative and organic agriculture better for our planet, but this kind of farming is also essential in creating the environment needed for balanced, healthy plants.

Fermentation and distillation cannot improve upon the raw ingredient. In fact, these processes can only either preserve what you start with or make it worse by not doing them correctly. So, everything flows back to the plant and how it is grown.

The secret to the “sweetness” in Branchwater spirits is the fermentation. Sugars cannot be distilled, so the “sense of sweetness” in our clear spirits derives from the quality of the fermentation itself, and how those attributes are expressed when distilled.

Because the distillery is the most impressive piece of equipment in the barn, the fermentation tanks and process itself is often overlooked and unremarked upon. At Branchwater, fermentation is the single most complicated step in the production of our spirits.

After harvest, we store the grain we grow as whole grains in bins behind the barn. Underneath each grain bin is a flex auger system that connects the bins to the grist house and the mill. Another flex auger connects the mill to the grist case inside the barn. The point of this system is to have a seamless transport of the whole grain from storage to the mill and into the mash tun for processing. Our combined experience with wine informs the way we handle the grain. We mill our own grain just before fermentation to prevent oxidation of the grist and to preserve fruitiness in the resulting fermentation. When the ferment is distilled, the result is a sense of sweetness on the palate.

This point of the timing of distillation is also critical to the quality of our spirits. Fermentation and distillation are performed in tandem because once the fermentation is complete, it must be distilled immediately. We can collect the cooling water from the distillery while it is running in the hot water tank. We can then heat this tank with steam to the temperatures needed to convert starch into fermentable sugars. When the hot water tank is at temperature, we mill the grain and then transfer the grist and the hot water together into the mash tun. The grist never sits longer than it takes to mill it before it is in production to prevent oxidation, and the ferment is distilled as soon as it is completed to preserve fruitiness.

Our process combines traditional simplicity with the most advanced technological precision. Heritage meets modernism, as we like to think of it. And none of it would be possible without our custom-built distillery system.

Its complexity is genius. Its ease of operation miraculous. One basic requirement for Kevin was that the system be operable by just one person since there are only two of us here running the farm! It was a huge ask. And Hans over delivered with a completely seamless, fully integrated design that takes all of our needs and local conditions into account.

The heart of the system — and our pride and joy — are two steam-powered, hand built 330-liter copper pot stills from Germany’s oldest distillery fabricator, Christian Carl. Hans designed and used these stills for years himself before moving up to bigger ones. When we approached him about creating a still for us, he offered to retrofit these for Branchwater’s specific requirements.

Having Hans help us from his home in Austria isn’t the obstacle you might imagine because he knows the equipment and processes blind. But just to be sure, our system is equipped with double the normal number of sensors to give Hans, and us, precise readings at every point in the entire process from fermentation to distillation. We installed closed-circuit cameras so he can keep an eye on the distillery and we can talk with each other in real time whenever needed.

The entire distillery is customizable to the ingredient being distilled, be it wheat for gin or apples for eau de vie. We can even adjust for the character of the growing season: a hot year that produces a lot of sugar in the fruit ferments at a different temperature than a cooler, lower-sugar crop. Micro adjustments of  0.1 degrees Celsius increments are essential for fine-tuned control — and that’s only possible with the steam-heat system Hans created for us. “Distilling is temperature” is Hans’ motto and, as we’ve learned from him, the secret to getting the purest expression of whatever spirit we produce.

As we’ve learned from Hans, purity implies complexity. The perfect grain or fruit is made up of countless nuances. Hans has taught us to seek the cleanest, freshest flavors in every ingredient, to convey the essence of skin, flesh, and varying levels of ripeness of our selected fruits for eau de vie and grist for spirits.

Cleaning is a huge part of distilling. You can’t get the quality we’re after without pristine equipment. All you need is one tiny piece of apple stuck in the wrong place and the whole fermentation can be ruined. Fortunately, our system gives us extremely hot water and steam that ensures this is never an issue. We have this system in the fermentation tanks, mash tun, and in the two distilleries themselves. As a result, it is very, very easy to clean and move forward, not waste time on the chores a normal distillery would require.

Another benefit is that while other distilleries are taking their spent mash and dumping it in the trash, Hans came up with a solution that feeds the spent mash back into the farm. We just pull a lever, and water rinses the spent mash out into a tank that's buried behind the barn. Once a year, when we have the crops in, we can pump that out and use it as compost on our fields.

The eastern end of our barn, where the cow stalls once stood, can hold 300 barrels of spirits. Branchwater Whiskeys and our apple brandy age in 200-liter new American oak barrels made for us by Adirondack Barrel Cooperage and by Charlois in California. Our rye will finish in barrels passed down by winemaker friends who farm after our own hearts. So far, we have barrels from Sandhi and Mayacamas. Our gin is raised in steel tank, as are all clear fruit brandies that we produce.