It started with some seed. Fifty pounds of Seashore Black Rye grain that Shelley Sackier at Reservoir Distillery in Richmond, Virginia bought from Riverbend Malt House for an heirloom rye project she’s been working on since last spring.
Seashore Black Rye is an heirloom rye varietal that was revived on Edisto Island, South Carolina. Its origin story and unique spiced cookie dough-meets-chicory notes got the attention of Slow Food USA®, who added Seashore Black to their Ark of Taste registry of foods near extinction in 2016. According to the organization, “Ark of Taste registers the most flavorful, historically resonant, and imperiled of the world’s ingredients and dishes.”
Sackier split this coveted rye into three segments to go to three different grain research establishments for study: two of Virginia Tech’s Agricultural, Research, and Extension Center (ARECs) at the Northern Piedmont station and the at their Warsaw station, and the University of Kentucky James B. Beam Institute.
Thus far, researchers have been able to plant in both the Piedmont and coastal appellations, Sackier says. “One of our fields resulted with a terrific yield (for a heritage grain—equal to that of a more traditional modern day rye variety) with very early, very fast, and very tall growth. This is not always ideal in that it can produce lodging later on and make it difficult for harvest; but the variety was entered into a forage study, as the results may prove to be of interest to farmers with livestock who are looking to provide their cattle with earlier than usual fresh greens.”
This particular variety was also distilled and barreled at Reservoir Distillery in October— a full run on a production room floor, adds Sackier. “But before that we ran small batch distillation tests and sent the distillate out to our sensory panel (which includes Julia Nourney, Dave Scheurich, Lisa Wicker, and Matt Strickland). The rye blew the socks off researchers.”
Also in October, Sackier and team held a baker meet-up at Reservoir Distillery to enjoy the very first taste of this Seashore Black Rye variety crafted into bread by one of Richmond’s most revered and respected professional bakers, Subros Bakery. This event took place in collaboration with the Common Grain Alliance and the Agricultural Leadership Development Initiative.
“Basically, this variety has made it full circle from grain grower to grain user and then grain consumer,” Sackier says. “An exciting achievement for all of us!”
This Seashore Black experiment was just one part of the simultaneous research, procuring, planting, harvesting, and distilling that Sackier’s research is doing in tandem with heritage, seed-saving organizations. The project now has 30 varieties of barley, wheat, rye, and corn in various stages of research and development. It has received funding with the task of studying some of the nation’s oldest grains used in the spirits industry, collecting data from field trials across appellations.
“Virginia is poised as the perfect epicenter for such a study,” claims Sackier. “As distillers, we’re keenly aware of the fact that Virginia is the birthplace of American spirit-making as far back as 1620 with grain distilling at the Berkeley Plantation just outside of Jamestown. With that distinction, we’re held to account to preserve those ancestral traditions.”
Sackier is the Director of Distillery Education at Reservoir Distillery. She’s also the author of the book Make it a Double, and an instructor for whiskey educational classes. Undoubtedly, she too is poised to spearhead such a study.
This research will provide invaluable flavor profile data for Sackier as she predicts and plans the trajectory of her products’ lifespans in their barrels. Purchasing flavorful grains is expensive, she points out, so “who is going to repeatedly purchase a product that is not focused on flavor?”
Sackier’s work, and many others in our Field To Bench series, reflects both the practicality and community ethos of collaboration across the grain supply chain that ultimately yields higher quality, more flavorful food and beverage products. “We’re trying to create a really healthy regenerative heritage grain economy, and so we need people from all aspects of industry to drive demand for these agricultural products,” she says.
The long game for the Virginia Heirloom Project is application of data. “I anticipate the evolution and culmination [of this study] to eventually have a database in which I pair up farmer and distiller who agree on heritage grain; then after maturation (three to five years) the bottled, labeled spirit with a picture of the farmer, distiller, and the grain choice— highlighting their investment in this specific grain, available to public as a very limited offering to taste the past.”
Sackier continues that in her vision of this project she hopes more distillers will add heritage products to portfolios. Her research will help them mitigate risk, she explains. “Give them a trial run to see if it has consumer interest; What’s the ROI to any end grain user?; Will it receive warm embrace from the community to support local and care for our grain economy?”
In answering these questions, the Virginia Heirloom Project also offers a case study for the significant contributions that the small-batch malting industry makes to the robust distilled spirits community— in flavor, premiumization, and distinction. Follow along on the Reservoir Distillery website for project updates.
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