Illinois farmers diversify with distilling and new tasting room
Cow Creek Organic Farm in East Central Illinois is part of an intergenerational enterprise. The Glazik family, Jeff and Rita Glazik and their children, Will, Clay, Dallas and Abby, have been innovating for decades to keep the fourth and fifth-generation farm vital. Linked operations now include Cow Creek, RoseLee Farms, and Silver Tree Beer & Spirits.
“Around (the year) 2000, you either needed to get bigger or specialize in order to keep the farm. All around our farm are cousins and people we know, so instead of fighting and battling with them to grow the farm, my parents decided to specialize,” Dallas Glazik explained.
Jeff and Rita certified their grain and cattle operation in 2002, getting up to 50 breeding cows and 150 head on the farm total. As their kids became adults, all of them wanted to tie back into the farm, which is hard to do on 400 acres. “So, we decided to value up the chain again and take our grain and distill it,” said Dallas. Now, everyone is involved: Will and Dallas farm grain, and Clay, Dallas, and Abby run the beverage operation.
Jeff and Rita still work with cattle. When they first switched to organics, they found out that diverse crop rotation is the key for both fertility and pest management. They planted oats and wheat for the cows to graze and added alfalfa as a nurse crop for corn and soybeans. Jeff always kept draft horses and each year, did at least one field with horse-drawn equipment. This wasn’t just novelty, but a good approach for areas that needed more delicate handling than tractors provide.
When Will and Dallas started to get involved, they began adding rented land to increase cash flow, to serve their income, and so they could invest in the farm and buy equipment. Having that space allowed them to stretch rotations and include more idle time between cash crops. Now they’ve got a seven-year rotation, which is tough to achieve on smaller acreages.
Currently, they work 800 acres. That number has been higher, but they recently lost 200 acres as a parcel changed hands from parents who believed in organic; the value didn’t carry when the land passed to the next generation. Such a shift is common in farming, but not cause for concern to Will and Dallas, who have quite enough on their hands.
Choosing distilling as a way to add value to their grain was a logical step. Prior to Prohibition, Illinois used to make more whiskey than anywhere in the US, even Kentucky. Barrels of whiskey were a currency for trade, and for sale. Very practically, this limited the amount of raw grain a farm had to store (and risk losing to mold or rodents).
Unlike New York and Michigan, Illinois has no farm distillery licensing, but Silver Tree is in talks with politicians about promoting that, especially since Illinois is a very proud agronomic state. The idea is that even though the state may lose some fees, the amount of tax dollars gained through focusing on layers of local processing and sales is significant.
On farm, the gains are also plentiful. The distillation process incorporates microbes that carry into spent mash. Mix that with some manure on the field and the microbes go rampant, said Dallas. Spent grains are also good additions to livestock feed. And on the production side, you can run through more volume as a distillery than by baking or milling; four to five pounds of grain are condensed into each bottle of spirits. Their 500-gallon still is right-sized, able to handle all the fermentable ingredients from their original 400-acre farm.
The farm has experimented with a range of grain varieties over the years, now narrowed down to a manageable few. They grow hybrid and open pollinated yellow corns, plus Bloody Butcher for bourbons, which they also sell to AGC member Judson & Moore Distillery. They’ve always used the same wheat—a public variety their father kept and cleaned each year. With more carbohydrates than protein, it’s suitable for making wheat vodka. The farm produces more than the distillery currently uses, selling into organic food and beverage markets, and feeding their livestock.
The distillery began in 2017, contracting out the distilling and making vodka. Whiskey needs a long time to age, so it sat in the background, rather invisibly until its September 2023 release, when 96 bottles of the first 100% Illinois-sourced whiskey produced since prohibition sold out in 21 minutes flat. Now, Silver Tree makes its own spirits at their distillery in Paxton, even picking up a recent Kernza® spirit project.
The tasting room and distillery are in the town of Paxton, population 4,500. Initially, the brick building stabled horses for the hotels on Main Street, making 19th century newspaper headlines as the fanciest livery South of Chicago. Most of its lifetime, it was a Ford dealership. The bar is in the old showroom and the Glazik’s opened up the former parts counter into a windowed area, so all the distilling is on display. In September they started offering monthly tours, and interest has been strong.
As one of the only storefronts with an agricultural focus, Silver Tree is a local jewel, and its products regularly draw attention from Chicago and beyond. The labels trace each field and growing year, so everyone knows just where the bottle began. Even the barrels are from the state’s only cooper, using local white oak and hickory.
Abby Glazik runs special events for Silver Tree, and branding comes from Boxing Worm Creative Co., which Clay Glazik co-founded. (Readers may recognize Boxing Worm as producers of AGC’s website and our Grain Chain Connections video series!)
On the horizon is a cleaning facility to keep some of the essential grain processing infrastructure and work at home. They look forward to amplifying a marketing campaign they've named Take a Shot at Climate Change. “We found out with our farming practices that we sequester a lot of carbon. Breaking that impact down, that’s 1.2 miles of a standard car offset per shot of whiskey,” said Dallas.
AGC is glad to have this family and their energy in our circuits!