Flyover Whiskey

Shay

Foulk: Hey everyone, Shay here. Hope you guys really enjoyed today's podcast with Joe Canobia of Flyover Whiskey. If you don't have a chance to listen to everything, please go check out flyoverwhiskey.com. Joe and his team have an awesome website set up over there. And what's cool about this, you'll hear more about it in the podcast, is you can order your own custom batch, custom-made whiskey from their team. Uh, you know, your field, your farm operation, you can put all the information on there. I'm sure it'd make a great gift, or more importantly, if it's just the memories or something that you want to commemorate within your family or your farm operation. Really cool idea. Check out today's podcast. Hope you enjoy it and let us know, uh, what you all think. Those flyover states. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag Do You Pitch.

Today you have Shay Foulk with Joe Kenobi out of West Point, Nebraska. Joe, thank you so much for joining us today.

Joe

Knobbe: Thanks for having me.

Shay

Foulk: And, uh, you know, I, I was telling you earlier here, I've seen you on Twitter. I think Twitter's awesome place for, you know, agriculture people that are involved in that. It's one of those things, it is what you make it, either love it or hate it. And I think it's so cool just to see what other farm operations, ag businesses have going on out there across the country. And so I was hoping maybe you could just give me a little background, you know, where's West Point, Nebraska? What do you have going on in the farm operation there? Just just tell me a little bit about yourself.

Joe

Knobbe: Uh, like you said, I'm Joe Kenobi. I'm from West Point and that is in Northeast Nebraska. Uh, it's a very livestock-centered, um, ag area. Uh, we have about the most cattle on feed of any county in America. Very, very livestock intensive. Uh, everybody has had or We'll continue to have livestock, uh, feeding, uh, corn, soybeans mostly. Other than that, um, when I came back from college about 8 years ago, uh, the family operation kind of split up, and that was a good split that kind of had to happen. And so kind of split everything into thirds between my dad and his brothers, and then it was kind of our I guess my dad and I's decision to kind of, we would farm and feed a little cattle on the side and then we would kind of go from there. And it's been really good. And it just seemed like the last few years we needed a little bit something more.

And this came up that we were able to kind of get into making whiskey and we kind of took it by the horns, I guess.

Shay

Foulk: So we're going to get to that. I think that's awesome. And that's one of the main reasons I reached out. So hopefully the listeners are intrigued by the whiskey portion. Production here. But, you know, so you talk about it being one of the most intensive cattle, uh, producing areas, uh, corn, soybeans. Is there much for, uh, forage production, silage in the area too, or is it mainly just grain production?

Joe

Knobbe: There's a lot of silage. I mean, that always comes with the livestock. We used to have a lot more dairies and pigs, and a lot of that's kind of gone, gone to the wayside, just the way things have gone the last few decades, but there's, there's still a lot of silos that gets put up for cattle.

Shay

Foulk: Now you were talking offline here that, uh, you're kind of in the heat of irrigation season, if I understand correctly. So, uh, maybe not as much water out there. You know, what would you estimate as far as, uh, crop production? How much is under pivots in your area?

Joe

Knobbe: Probably a third, a big third under pivots. That's kind of our fallback. I don't know, maybe half of our ground is underwater. Mostly pivots, not as much in eastern Nebraska. There's not as much drip or gravity, mostly pivots.

Shay

Foulk: So I would ask, just in relation to that, you know, what water source are you guys drawing from? And then also, I know particularly in western Nebraska, there's a lot of issues with water usage. Is that much of a concern in your area?

Joe

Knobbe: Uh, it's not, we're not as controlled as some areas. When you get into like South Central Nebraska, it's not as controlled up here yet. And it seems like every year they just get a little bit more honest that we're gonna start getting controlled eventually. Everyone's required to have water meters. Uh, it just seems like that's another down the road. It's gonna happen.

Shay

Foulk: Thankfully you don't need a bunch of water to make whiskey, just a little bit. So you guys should be okay on that portion. And then what water source? What water source are you guys drawing from then?

Joe

Knobbe: Uh, just well water, aquifer.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, gotcha. No, that sounds good. And so you guys have some cattle in your operation. Uh, what, what kind of cattle are you running?

Joe

Knobbe: Uh, mostly Angus, um, mostly Minnesota, Montana cattle, some western Nebraska cattle. Uh, yeah, black and red Angus mostly.

Shay

Foulk: Oh, that's great. So, you know, you mentioned a little bit about, you know, the history and the family. And, you know, I think it's interesting not knowing any of your background, but just the comment that you made on the split in the operation. I think there's a conception out there with people in agriculture that when you have a split in the family operation, it's the worst thing in the world. And whether it's for a good reason or a bad reason, it doesn't matter. But particularly in the consulting side, a lot of times what we see is that might be the best decision for people. You know, sometimes communication just doesn't work out or you have different personalities, or even sometimes, and what people maybe don't give consideration to is an operation has grown to a critical mass to where you can split it and support different families.

And again, I'm not asking you to dive into that, but I would just make a note to the listeners that when you hear that sentiment or you hear that story past of an operation splitting, I would encourage you not to first go to the idea that well, that's a failure, or something must have been going wrong. So again, that's just something that we, that we see here. But so, you know, moving, moving from that, um, to you and your dad, uh, so you say you came back from college, you had, uh, looking for something else, you know, how do we, how do we provide more value to the operation, maybe some additional income? And this idea for, for Flyover Whiskey came up. So tell me a little bit more about the background there.

Joe

Knobbe: So there's a guy down the road that actually started it and got it licensed and he kind of got it rolling and got the licensing all in order. And then he decided that he was going to go to grad school and he wanted to sell all the equipment. I mean, it was kind of just starting. This was exactly a year ago about when we took over. And so he had been running it for about 6 months and we kind of took the reins and I had, going backwards, I had been making whiskey kind of on my own prior to this. And it was kind of funny, we had the same recipe, which I was not at all— I mean, he was 20 miles away and we had no idea we were doing the same thing. So it was kind of just stroke of luck. That we were kind of doing the same thing and it was an easy transition. The recipes were similar. The process was similar. Nothing changed in that transition.

And it was something that we couldn't really say no to from my perspective. And it was just something we needed to hop on. It was right there in our backyard. And it was something that was very Nebraska-centered, very ag-centered. Um, it really felt like something that brought us back to our roots, I guess, and kind of my roots, just the way I think. Um, I guess I've always been ag-centered myself, but I maybe wasn't the biggest cowboy or the biggest mechanic or the biggest that way. It was just I could make whiskey, right? Or I could do a recipe, or I could, you know, it's kind of like feeding cattle. It's kind of like doing, doing things like that. It's a little different and it takes precision, and it always just made sense to me. And so something I couldn't say no to, and it's a lot of fun.

Well, that's a lot of fun to meet, to meet, to meet producers and the— because I was kind of missing that. And I guess it was right as COVID was coming to an end or slowing down that it was kind of like, man, I just need, need something a little bit more. And we're in a good place, um, just labor-wise and other stuff. And I had a buddy who wanted to come back home and help, and he actually used to work at a brewery in Lincoln and he was way out in Oregon and he wanted to move home from Portland for good reason also. And it was just, uh, it was just lucky that the stars kind of aligned that we said, yeah, we have to do this. And for our operation, it was, it's something that fit.

Shay

Foulk: So, so I'm going to back up here a little bit. This Flyover Whiskey, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, was that inspired by Jason Aldean's song of Flyover States or did it come from something else?

Joe

Knobbe: No, it was definitely inspired by that. Definitely, uh, definitely a point of, um, yeah, just kind of sticking it to everybody that thinks that we're just flyover states, I guess.

Shay

Foulk: I love it. I think that's fantastic. And you know, one of my favorite things about Nebraska too, we've done a bunch of travels out west and people that, you know, drive through Iowa, they say Iowa's boring, whatever, it's just corn. But they're like, oh, you'll die in Nebraska, you know, if you don't like Iowa. I think Nebraska is one of my favorite states to drive through because it's almost like there's, there's 3 different areas. You got normal Iowa looking, and then you get into more dry land, and then all of a sudden western Nebraska is like a whole other planet, right? And so, yeah, flyover state sentiment, I love that, uh, you know, kind of sticking it to the man when you, when you hear that.

Joe

Knobbe: It's definitely a point of endearment that we— it's our, it's our place if it's If it's not somewhere you want to be, that's okay.

Shay

Foulk: That's right. And, and the second thing that I really liked about, you know, what you said there, and I appreciate your transparency and honesty on that, um, you know, a friend of ours and on the consulting and the podcasting side of the world, uh, Damian Mason, he always talks about this, uh, this perception that we have of farmers, right? And you, you wear bib overalls and you can fix your 4020 and you can be the best mechanic and you care for the livestock from dusk till dawn and And that's not what farming is anymore. And not everybody fits in the box. So when you talked about, and I relate with you, I'm not the best mechanic in the world. I can fix things. I can beat things with a hammer sometimes to make it work.

But when it comes to who you are and where your talents lie, we see so often that it's better for people in a team to focus on the areas that they're really good at and then maybe help facilitate some of the other areas. So for you to point that out, I just really appreciate that, especially as we move forward in agriculture. Things don't get less complex and things don't get any simpler, I guess is what I should say. So for you to recognize that about yourself and be open and perceptive to that, that's really cool. Now, the gentleman that you mentioned that came back that was working at the brewery, I was reading on the website, I think it's been a friend of yours for a long time, and I think I know the right person there. So I mean, yeah, full circle, right?

Joe

Knobbe: Yep, full circle. And, uh, funny how things work out.

Shay

Foulk: So now he's, he's listed as the head distiller on the site, and you're listed as master distiller, do I understand?

Joe

Knobbe: Kind of the, the all-around owner-operator. Okay, can do all, but I think he's the— he gets the the name because he takes a thimbleful out of every single batch and tries it and makes sure it's quality. And so he gets the tagline, master distiller, head distiller.

Shay

Foulk: Very cool. So one thing that I want to shift to here, talking a little bit more about that setup, you said you took over the equipment. I mean, what are we talking about? Because when I paint a picture of a distillery in my mind, I think big vats and multiple systems. I've seen everything from Jack Daniel's to home systems in between. So paint paint a picture for the listeners on what the setup looks like. How big is it?

Joe

Knobbe: I'd say just think small. Okay. We're working on like a 7-gallon bucket would be one batch of 6 bottles. Okay. So that'd be a fermenter size. And then the keg size, the still would be instead of this huge still that takes up a whole room, it's a like a half keg size still. Awesome. It's just they're very small, single serving or single batch. Um, each run is one unique batch, so, and so everything, everything is sized accordingly. And then the, the barrels, it's not a 55-gallon barrel, it's a 1.5-gallon barrel. I mean, they're very small. Everything is kind of one batch size.

Shay

Foulk: Multiple lines or just one line, or how do you guys handle that?

Joe

Knobbe: What do you mean lines?

Shay

Foulk: So like, uh, are you just running one system or do you have multiple batches going at the same time? How does that work for, you know, someone that's sending grain in?

Joe

Knobbe: So we'll process each, each 10 pounds or 20 pounds of corn for one batch in one, one bucket. And then that'll go into one still, which will go into one barrel. And then that'll go all the way through to being 6 bottles. Very good. And so we can do a few at a time of each. We've got a lot of buckets.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome.

Joe

Knobbe: And then we've got a few stills we can run at the same time, but otherwise everything is kind of one at a time.

Shay

Foulk: Okay.

Joe

Knobbe: So then everything gets labeled once at a time for the most part. Yep.

Shay

Foulk: So, so multiple stills, that's maybe a better way of me asking that question. And, and so you as a listener, As you're thinking about this, um, you know, Joe, I would, I would ask you to maybe describe the process. But, you know, I'm, I'm here in Illinois and I produce, uh, you know, a 100-acre field of corn, and I decide, man, it'd be really cool to have a small batch that came from, you know, this location or this hybrid or this year or whatever it is. Um, I can send you corn and you're distilling personal-run batches of corn as Flyover Whiskey. Do I understand that correct?

Joe

Knobbe: Yep. Yep. So we'll send— if you place an order, we send you a USPS package for corn, and all you have to do is bring in the corn from— if you save a specific field and you have the information for that field, you throw a bucket of that corn into that USPS bag and drop it in the mail, and we'll get it with your name on it. And then we'll ask for your information from that field. And then we take that, we make whiskey out of that corn, and we'll put your harvest information and a logo or brand or picture. Had a lot of family pictures, the ranch brand, the farm logo, any of that also on the label of the bottle. What a— everything is— every, every 6 bottles is unique.

Shay

Foulk: What a cool concept. I think that's phenomenal. And, you know, I don't know whether you guys had, you know, heard of this elsewhere, or you guys came up with it, or wherever the idea is, but it's so cool to me to think that someone 500 miles away can send you corn that they want in their batch, specific to them, and it's, it's meaningful, right? It's the most personalized experience you can get from a distilled whiskey that then comes back to you, you can enjoy with friends, you can enjoy with family. Boy, that's— I just think it's so cool. And so you said at the end of that you're getting 6 750ml bottles, right? Mm-hmm.

Joe

Knobbe: Yep. That's one batch. That's our base size, our smallest size.

Shay

Foulk: So when you think of this, do you think of this business as a type of agritourism? I mean, you don't have people there in the facility like watching you guys do the process or whatever, But it almost is, right? It's almost you're creating an experience for people. How do you think about that and what weight or gravity does that carry for you guys as business owners when you think about what you're doing for these families and for our operation?

Joe

Knobbe: Yep. We don't do tours yet. The distillery is actually in a fairway barn that we used to have. So it has all the— had all the sanitary sides and everything to begin with. And that's kind of where we got the idea where we can, we can do this. Yeah, so we're still making it show ready, I guess. But in the meantime, uh, we do— we sometimes give tours, but not often. But, um, I guess, um, every batch means something to us. It's, it's special. We know that every batch is special to the person buying it and that it came from somewhere special. That's why they put an order in. That's why they want it done. They want to share it, um, with family and friends, or just have a keepsake. We've had a lot of guys say that, well, this was my best year, my worst year, or I want to do it every year.

This is the first farm I ever bought, or this is my last year farming, or in the— I mean, it just, it can get really sad. I mean, it just— some guys want to commemorate their grandpa that passed away. I mean, these things, these things happen, and it's really, it's nice to be able to provide that for a family. Um, but I guess going, going back to the beginning, I just think of like how we, like, as livestock producers, we always had You know, we kind of had our own milk, we had our own chicken, we always had our own eggs, we always had our own beef. You know, we always had these things that, you know, I wasn't around when they were butchering our own beef and chickens, but they did that all the time, you know, 50 years ago. And I think we just kind of got away from that, being able to have your own produce, you know, on every single farm. I mean, everyone had that.

Everyone could trade with the, their neighbors. They could share something with their neighbors. They could share with other family. Well, this is our— that cow has our brand on it, you know. It's just not— there's not as much of that anymore. And I guess that's kind of where the, the need comes from for this, that it's kind of— it's your identity as a farmer. I mean, you can say I made this. And that's kind of what we help you do.

Shay

Foulk: I think, you know, you mentioned the last 2 years, the craziness with COVID and how people, you know, it became sheltered in a sense, but I think it also grounded people back to, you know, maybe ordering from a local meat company, going through their lockers, you know, maybe making some reconnections there. And I can see how during that time period, it probably was a maybe a great launch to your business, the serendipity and timing of how do we have something special come out of a time that's just everything else is weird. And I think as you grow that moving forward is really neat. What do you think, I know it's early in the game here, but do you see this getting bigger? You guys like where you're at? Are you going to try to do the agritourism thing or what's on the horizon? What's on Joe's mind?

Joe

Knobbe: I think it's there. I think this is a start of something, and I wish we could, you know, just expand and make it, you know, kind of countrywide. And we've gotten orders from coast to coast and interest from all over, and it's a lot of fun, but it is something that has to be kind of local, and you can only take that local feeling so far. But it is something that's different and that you can— it is cool that you're 500 miles away and that you can send me your corn and I can send you whiskey back and it's yours. And that's something we just want to keep holding on to that as tight as we can, and that we can provide that.

Shay

Foulk: So I would go on to ask, and this is a little bit of a one-off question, but we've been talking about, uh, Yellow Dent number 2 field corn here. Can you run any— can you run any other corn? Can you run you know, Indian corn or native, you know, Indian corn, sweet corn. Can you do all sorts of other weird stuff out there? Have you done any of that?

Joe

Knobbe: We have done just about every color, I think. Now I think red, white, blue. Uh, we've done popcorn, we've done dried mature sweet corn. Um, I think we've done just about everything so far. And it's all a little different. Everything has its own unique taste, even from hybrid to hybrid, variety to variety. Everything has subtle differences and it just, you wouldn't think it, it wouldn't, but you can taste it.

Shay

Foulk: So in your picture on the website, you got a Decal pad on and there's people that are diehard Decal, diehard Pioneer, diehard XYZ, doesn't matter. Do you have any personal preference or have you found anything that you like better than the other?

Joe

Knobbe: And you can— I personally wore— I wore a Wilson hat so that I wouldn't make anybody mad.

Shay

Foulk: That's fine.

Joe

Knobbe: But if I visit someone around here, I usually like to wear the other hat.

Shay

Foulk: Gotcha.

Joe

Knobbe: But I have not noticed a specific hybrid of a company that is the best or tastes significantly different.

Shay

Foulk: Gotcha.

Joe

Knobbe: In a really good, really bad way. It all tastes pretty good. It's all smooth. It's really the, the quality is probably the best indicator, the quality coming in. If it came right off the field and it was perfect, 15-16% corn, no dirt, no nothing, I mean, just good clean corn is going to make good smooth whiskey.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. And the recipe, I'm sure, has a bunch to do with that. Have you tried different recipes?

Joe

Knobbe: You guys just running the one recipe, or Mostly, yeah, mostly the just corn. And obviously some guys want to run a little bit of wheat or a little sorghum, and we can go up to 20% of other grains and still be corn whiskey. Uh, but mostly, mostly just the same recipe corn unless people want something else.

Shay

Foulk: That's really interesting with the 20% other grains. I, I hadn't given that much thought, I guess. So, you know, the one thing that we haven't hit on here that we were talking about earlier, there maybe is a little bit of a hitch or kind of a quirk to how it gets to me from 500 miles away, and I'm not in Nebraska. So what's the overarching— what's the 30,000-foot view of that?

Joe

Knobbe: So there are still some laws that remain from Prohibition, and basically the federal government left it up to the states to decide what their shipping laws would be for alcohol. And for wine, most states decided within the last 50 years to allow wine to travel inter and intrastate from producers to consumers. And for spirits like whiskey, they did not. There are only 6 states that said yes, you can ship from the producer to a consumer anywhere, or to, into that state. So Nebraska and North Dakota and a handful of other states are the only states that decided that you can do that. So right now we are currently just using a system of farmers across the Grain Belt mostly, that if you have a friend in Nebraska, it really helps to— that if you're in Illinois they get your corn to you or they get your whiskey to you.

We can take corn from anywhere, but the whiskey shipment is kind of, kind of on, on you. So, right, uh, we can't ship between North Dakota and Nebraska freely, and then everywhere else is kind of— you need to, you need a buddy.

Shay

Foulk: Um, everybody listening to this, I have siblings now, is going through their phone saying, who in the world do we know from Nebraska? And you and I were talking, the ag space is a small world and it gets smaller over time. But, uh, be looking for those friends.

Joe

Knobbe: I think everyone knows, uh, Quint Keneally from Tecama who's on Twitter, and I think he's probably got numerous calls from people that know him off Twitter that they need to talk to him.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome.

Joe

Knobbe: So I have siblings all across the US too, and they seem like they— everybody wants to help.

Shay

Foulk: So that's cool.

Joe

Knobbe: Well, one way or another, the farmers will get it done.

Shay

Foulk: Right. And I think what you said there too, it just goes back to the roots and the community and keeping that local experience, sharing your stories, sharing the memories with your family, whether it's happy, it's sad, it's the best, it's the worst, whatever it is. I'm just fascinated by what you guys have going here. I think it's phenomenal. The last thing that I would ask of you, let's just run through it one more time. If you have someone that reaches out to you, they're listening to this podcast, they're listening in Indiana, right? And it's June 24th here when we're recording this. What does that look like this fall if they decide they're interested in getting some Flyover Whiskey small batch made for them personally? What do they need to do?

Joe

Knobbe: So we have a website flyoverwhiskey.com. That's the easiest way to put an order in. All you have to do is put on there that you have corn and submit your information and You'll be sent a USPS bag to put your corn in whenever it's convenient to you. You'll receive a form to put in all your harvest information whenever you get that. If it's not now and you don't have corn now, that's okay. You just do it when you get it. And I think right now we're, we're kind of just into that Christmas window, and then hopefully we can get new crop orders done as soon as we can. Harvest is always super busy, but we're gonna try to squeeze as many people in as we can. Yep. And then whiskey usually takes kind of 8 weeks, so it is a small time frame. But then again, we just, we have to try to get it done as quick as we can for Christmas and things like that. Logos, we need, we need at least a month.

We try to shoot for at least a month in the barrel.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, and then logos and pictures, you know, how, what's the best way for people to get that to you? Are they sending files or they sending it in the mail or what works best there?

Joe

Knobbe: Right, so we send out like a, it's basically a Google Form. Okay. That is a, our label customization form that you just fill in your harvest information. There's a Dropbox that you can just submit your picture or logo to, and then we take that and put it all together and then get a label on all 6 bottles.

Shay

Foulk: I don't know if this information's updated. We haven't, we haven't talked on pricing here. If you just wanted to talk through that, what that's like for someone that's interested in being a part of this.

Joe

Knobbe: So the, the base, the 6 bottles, it is $350 for 6 bottles. That's baseline. We tried not to deviate too much from that. Kind of the shipping has been crazy the last 6 months. And so we do charge some for shipping, but otherwise that's, that is the price that if you picked it up today, that's what it would be.

Shay

Foulk: When I think about good whiskey, if I were to go to whatever my local beverage store is and buy 6 good bottles of whiskey, I don't know if you could buy it for that. And I say that from the standpoint that I think that's a steal, personally. And I mean that the value is there, and I think it's so cool that you guys are providing that. And I would just encourage everybody that's listening to this to think about whether you're the one that wants 6 bottles to yourself, or you got family to share it with, or you want to run a double batch and have 12 bottles to give to customers, or you run a business or whatever, Just really cool. And I promise Joe didn't pay me to talk through this. I just truly have watched it for the last year. Sounds like I probably picked it up right as you guys got rolling there and just thought it was one of the neatest things.

So Joe, thank you so much for just sharing your story, sharing what you guys are doing. I wish you guys nothing but the best success as you move forward here. And hopefully someone that listens to this will reach out to you and, and get a taste of what Flyover Whiskey is like with their corn.

Joe

Knobbe: That sounds good. Thanks, Shay.

Shay

Foulk: Thank you. And, uh, thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we will catch you next time.