Say the word “Kernza” to 1,000 people and it would be shocking if one person knew what it was. Even for those who are immersed in agriculture, Kernza is a novelty among grain crops that is still widely unknown. When it comes to distilling, corn, barley, wheat, and rye are the chosen children of the whisky family and Kernza is the recently adopted baby who is just learning how to walk. It may take some time, but eventually this grain could find its footing in the industry thanks to its environmental benefits that the other siblings don’t possess.
Initially created in the United States at non-profit research organisation the Land Institute in the 1980s, Kernza is a trademarked name for a perennial wheatgrass. Today there are multiple scientists around the world working to develop it alongside the Land Institute. When compared to other grains that have been cultivated for thousands of years and evolved over a long period of time, the researchers working to make Kernza a viable crop have made major strides in a relatively short period of time. But outside of the agronomical laboratories, getting the grain into secondary markets is the number one challenge.
In the United States there are more than 2,000 distilleries and only five are known to have distilled with Kernza. Along with the select few bakers, brewers, and farmers who have experimented with this little-known grain, they are helping to move the needle closer towards sustainable agriculture.
While Kernza is genetically similar to traditional wheat, the main difference that sets it apart from other grains is the fact that it is a perennial crop. This means it can be planted once and it will come back in following years without having to be replanted. Some fruits and vegetables are perennial crops, but grains — which cover the majority of arable land used for crop growth — are essentially all annual crops that have a life cycle of one year. Whether it’s corn, barley, wheat, or rye, every year farmers must replant these crops which is a costly endeavour financially and environmentally.
When a farmer begins the process of planting an annual grain, they start by tilling the land to help loosen the soil for the new seeds. Not only does tilling require heavy machinery that is polluting, but it also releases carbon stored in the soil into the atmosphere. Another problem with annual crops is that after they are harvested, the barren land is susceptible to erosion from the elements and nutrients in the soil can be lost because there is no root system in place to hold them in.
Kernza, on the other hand, can be planted once and will come back for up to five years before yields drop off and it needs to be replanted. Five years of not having to till up the earth can go a long way towards reducing a farm’s carbon footprint. It also has an extensive root system compared to annual wheat with roots that can grow more than 10ft deep and help retain nutrients in the soil. The deep roots also make Kernza more resilient to drought than other grains which is a desirable trait as climate change continues to intensify heat waves and droughts across the world.
But despite the benefits of Kernza, there are some drawbacks that are hindering its widespread acceptance in agriculture. First and foremost are the significantly smaller yields; according to the Land Institute, an acre of Kernza grown in Kansas only produces about 25 per cent of what an acre of winter wheat yields. Through selective breeding, researchers have managed to double the seed size over the last 20 years, but this negatively impacted pollination when the plant started to droop. In the next 20 years, the Land Institute anticipates that Kernza yields will rival wheat. Regardless of the current challenges and resulting high cost for the grain, those who know about Kernza are still championing its extraordinary potential.
Blake Winter owns a 160-acre farm on the Kansas–Colorado border and planted 40 acres of Kernza in October of 2022. He learned about it through his neighbour Shawn Gruenhagen who has been consulting with the Land Institute and working with Sustain-A-Grain, a primary distributor of Kernza. Gruenhagen and Winter reside in a suburb of Denver, Colorado called Wheat Ridge and joke that they are lobbying to change the name to Kernza Ridge.
The same year Winter planted the Kernza on his farm, he and Gruenhagen approached the owners of Bear Creek Distillery in Denver and convinced them to experiment with it. As co-founder of Bear Creek Distillery Jay Johnson says, “We’ll try anything once, or twice.” At first the team at Bear Creek wanted to make a 100 per cent Kernza whisky, but after evaluating the high costs, they settled on producing a bourbon with a mash bill of 51 per cent corn, 39 per cent Kernza, and 10 per cent malted barley. The two 53-gallon barrels are currently ageing, and they have high hopes for the whisky with a bottling target of July 2026.
“There’s going to be a learning curve, but whisky has been whisky for hundreds of years and whenever you have some innovation that maybe is a game changer, people, especially the craft segment, are going to be drawn to that in my experience,” Johnson says. “That’s probably our target market but it’s pretty exciting to be on the forefront of anything.”
For the first batch, they sourced the Kernza and the seeds for Winter’s farm from Sustain-A-Grain, but if the bourbon turns out favourably, the plan is to keep sourcing it from Winter’s farm when he begins to harvest the grain. Since Winter has another job outside of his family farm, he was willing to gamble on Kernza in hopes I don’t know how you put a return on that. That’s the big question. It’s probably the right thing to do, but I don’t know if it’s been assigned a monetary value yet.”
One distillery that did manage to produce a whisky that was nearly 100 per cent Kernza is Tattersall Distilling, which has locations in Minneapolis, Minnesota and River Falls, Wisconsin. The University of Minnesota, which has a notable research programme working to develop Kernza, had partnered with a handful of breweries in the area and contacted Tattersall to initiate the idea of making a whisky with the grain.
The distillery intentionally produced a primarily Kernza spirit to highlight its individual flavour profile, but co-founder Jon Kreidler says future batches will probably use it as a blend due to the high cost. However, Kreidler says the Kernza whisky had great flavour with a distinct nuttiness that set it apart from others. When it was younger, he claims it also had brandy-like qualities, but those flavours came down over time. It is exciting to speculate what flavours Kernza may contribute to future whiskies, but for now Tattersall just wants to help spread the word.
“For us it’s about trying to raise awareness that it exists, and it’s really to try to help people understand why it’s different and why it’s important,” Kreidler says. “There isn’t enough awareness of the grain and the importance of it for the secondary markets to have a lot of demand for it yet. I think that’s been the biggest struggle for the grain.”
When Manya Rubinstein, CEO of the Industrious Spirit Company (ISCO) in Rhode Island, learned of Kernza, it was a no-brainer for her to find a way to use it. ISCO prides itself on sustainability and is no stranger to experimentation in the distillery, making headlines when it became the first distillery to produce an oyster vodka in 2022. Like Bear Creek Distillery, ISCO made a bourbon with Kernza that is currently ageing.
“I believe that we are going to see more and more distilleries incorporate sustainability into their core missions,” Rubinstein says. “As a resource-heavy industry that works directly with agricultural products as core inputs, we have a vested interest in the continued availability of those products. Perennial grains such as Kernza, which use fewer agricultural inputs and help to protect and build soil, are a valuable tool in the toolbox as we move towards a more sustainable industry.”
With the consequences of climate change becoming more evident by the day, shifting to sustainably sourced ingredients should be a priority for all industries. Annual grains that have been cultivated for thousands of years are still the cash crops that farmers rely on, but hope is on the horizon.
It could be quite some time before whiskies made with Kernza occupy the walls of cocktail bars and liquor store shelves. Even with the handful of distilleries that have distilled it, the batches are limited and can sell out much faster than it takes the spirit to age. The other distilleries that have used Kernza are Smoky Valley Distillery in Marquette, Kansas and Ventura Spirits in Ventura, California. By opting to experiment with Kernza in an industry where it often takes years to see the final result of a project, these distilleries recognise the potential of perennial agriculture and are proud to be the first ones to introduce the grain to whisky consumers.
