HARDWICK – You might expect a high-end bourbon to come from Tennessee or Kentucky, yet innovatively, High Drive Distillery in Hardwick is proving that fine whiskey can be made right here in Vermont.
Brothers Nick and Taylor Meyer have transformed their family dairy into an organic distillery, crafting grain-to-glass whiskey on their Hardwick farm.
The distillery has released its first fully organic, farm-grown bourbon, crafted entirely from grains grown on-site.
For over 50 years, North Hardwick Farm operated as a dairy operation. The 300-acre farm on Bridgman Hill Road was founded by Steve and Patty Meyer in the 1970s.
Nick and Taylor Meyer grew up on the family farm. In 2019 they decided to chart a new course for the business which was struggling financially.
In thinking about how the idea for the distillery came about, Nick Meyer recalled a simple question, “We asked ourselves, how do we continue?”
The brothers decided to end the farm’s dairy operation and launched a distillery producing gin, bourbon and rye. The farm still continues to raise cattle for meat as well.
That year the brothers turned the milking barn into the brewing room and converted the dairy portion of the farm into a distillery. They started growing barley, winter rye and heirloom corn, along with hay in the fields that cows used to graze.
Introducing liquor-production to the operation proved to be just the innovation the farm needed.
“We need the spirits to keep the animals, and we need the animals to keep the spirits. They keep the field fertile to grow the crops for those spirits,” Nick said.
While many distilleries import the grains they use in their liquors, High Drive Distillery grows all of their own. Grains harvested on the farm go straight to the distillery, like the heirloom corn variety processed into their bourbon.
“We’re literally combining it straight off the cob of the corn here,” Meyer said.
Unlike conventional farms that depend on genetically modified crops to prevent growing issues, the Meyer brothers prefer a natural approach, rotating crops every year to different locations across the farm to encourage healthy soil.
It’s a big lift. “We’re harvesting, combining, drying, cleaning, mashing, fermenting and distilling everything ourselves,” Nick said.
The brothers announced High Drive Gin, their first distillery product in December 2024. They’re now working to place the product in more stores and bars across the region.
“Profits will come,” Meyer said.
Juniper Bar and Restaurant at Hotel Vermont has been making cocktails using High Drive Gin since its release last winter.
Kate Wise, the bar manager, developed a popular gin cocktail called “Crimson and Clover.” Wise mixes the gin with coconut water, sugar, lime and bitters.
She said she’s working to craft up another locally-sourced drink with High Drive’s new bourbon, which the farm released this October.
Bringing the bourbon to life has been a slow, meticulous process, one that’s been years in the making, according to Nick. The bottled batch comes from a 2020 harvest of wapsie valley corn, and has aged for about three years in American oak barrels.
As temperatures fluctuate, the bourbon expands and contracts, drawing out the flavor and color of the wooden barrels, Nick explained.
The aging process lends the bourbon its unique flavor, which Nick describes as: “candy in the front, and spice in the back.”
The bourbon is now being sent out to 802 liquor stores. With further connections it will enter restaurants and bars in local areas.
Todd Hardie, fellow grain farmer and founder of Caledonia Spirits, which started in Hardwick and is now based in Montpelier, thinks the Meyer’s hard work has paid off in the taste of their spirits.
“Organic grain in whiskey and bread makes it taste so much better,” he said. “It’s delicious.”
In questioning what the farm hopes to convey through the new bourbon launch, Nick said: “We were raised to be stewards of the land and to learn how to treat and care for it. I hope we can share that through our new bourbon, and continue to teach it in future generations.”
Alana Dutcher-Hirsch writes for the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship for the Hardwick Gazette.
