FarmHERs Amy Brown + Paige Dockweiler’s bourbon cream has been voted best in the South, featuring unique flavors like peppermint mocha and butter pecan. Doc Brown Farm & Distillers is one of the few women-led seed-to-still farms in the United States, growing rare varieties of corn and rye. They pride themselves on their unique mash bill, which features Jimmy Red corn and Abruzzi rye, both of which are farmed using sustainable practices.
Doc Brown Farm & Distillers
Amy and Paige are making HERstory with every barrel of bourbon produced on their farm and distillery in Senioa, Georgia — since Doc Brown Farm & Distillery is only one of four women-led distilleries in the world.
“Bourbon is America’s native spirit,” Amy explained. “Bourbon cannot be made anywhere else but the United States. So to have that in Georgia on a farm —that’s something we’re excited to share with anyone who wants to visit.”
Doc Brown’s is located far off the beaten path of the Bourbon Trail. While they use a traditional Kentucky-style distillery to make their spirits, part of their mission is to share how they go about growing award-winning grains in the Piedmont Region of Georgia. Since the region features soil that’s a mix of clay, silt, and sand, they accomplished this with soil amendments.
“I am super proud to be a part of it,” Paige said. “Letting other states know that bourbon can be produced in Georgia.”
Jimmy Red Corn + Abruzzi Rye
Amy and Paige’s farming story starts with an article in Garden & Gun. Many years ago, a feature on a once nearly extinct variety of corn called Jimmy Red brought back shared childhood memories of growing up on farms and a desire to get back to their roots.
It all starts with the heirloom Jimmy Red Corn that they grow. However, since bourbon only needs to be 51% corn, it was up to them to find the perfect combination of grains to create their signature mash bill. The recipe came full circle with the introduction of Abruzzi rye, an Italian grain that provides unique spice to their products and balances the earthy sweetness provided by the corn.
“When it turns red in its drying stage, it looks just like a pomegranate seed — rich, red, beautiful; high in oil; high in sugar; high in protein,” Amy explained. “That corn, combined with this Abruzzi rye for one of our mash bills, makes just a spectacular bourbon.”
A Family Affair
Amy and Paige both grew up on family farms in Georgia. Amy’s family immigrated to the state in the early 1800s and raised pigs and corn. She left agriculture to pursue a career in banking and raise her sons. Paige’s family has been farming since the late 1800s. She spent her childhood growing corn, soybeans, peanuts, watermelons, and cantaloupes with her dad, but later followed in her mother’s footsteps to become a nurse.
“We both had such a desire to go back to farming and back to our roots — something we both fought hard to break away from,” Amy said. “But once farming is in your DNA and flows through your blood, it’s something you have to do.”
At Doc Browns, their business model is built on family — from packaging and labels inspired by Amy and Paige’s long family history rooted in Georgia agriculture to running their business alongside one of Amy’s sons, also a farmer, who partners with their company.
“We actually have to pinch ourselves that we’re able to put something in the Earth, watch it grow, and harvest it,” Paige said.
Crafting Bourbon from Farm to Glass
Their operation is entirely sustainable and relies on Georgia agriculture from start to finish, which takes about one full calendar year.
Grains are planted after the last frost (around Easter in Georgia), grown throughout the summer, and then harvested in the fall. Once harvested, they are transported directly to the distillery for processing. That’s where Matt Griff, Doc Brown’s Master Distiller, gets to work on the mash bill, mixing and fermenting the grains. Once the taste is to his liking, it’s transferred to the still where steam transforms Griff’s concoction into a future cocktail.
The alcohol is then pumped into brand-new white oak barrels — another key requirement of bourbon-making — raised and crafted by another local farm. They also partner with a local cattle farmer, who repurposes their spent grains into animal feed.
The final requirement of bourbonmaking is age, so those barrels are where it will sit for a minimum of two years. As Amy would say, it’s age that helps bring all the flavor notes together to create something beautiful.
Full Circle Moment
While bourbon might need time to age gracefully, a brand-new business needs to make money to operate. So that’s part of how they started producing their line of award-winning Bourbon Creams, which Paige says is a manifestation of “creativity as a revenue stream,” while they patiently wait for their bourbon to mature.
Amy noted that while there are many good bourbon creams on the market, many of them are unflavored. What makes Doc Brown’s Bourbon Cream unique is the special flavors, many of which are inspired by their own taste memories (like eating mint chocolate chip ice cream with their son as a child). What they created became their calling card — a product so yummy, Kirbe said, it’s “dangerous in a good way.”
In a wonderfully full-circle moment, the latest chapter in Amy and Paige’s agricultural journey also caps off with an article in Garden & Gun.
This time, Doc Brown Farm & Distillers’ Butter Pecan Bourbon Cream Liqueur was honored in the magazine’s 2023/2024 Made in the South Awards. When you pick up a bottle, Amy suggests making some homemade whipped cream.
Ways to Watch
Watch this all-new episode of FarmHER + RanchHER featuring Amy and Paige of Doc Brown Farm & Distillers, when it premieres on Thursday, September 4 at 8:30 pm ET only on RFD-TV and RFD-TV Now!
You can also catch encore airings of the episode on Fridays at 9:30 pm ET and Saturdays at 11:30 am ET, or stream any episode of FarmHER + RanchHER any time with your RFD-TV Now subscription. To subscribe, visit www.watchrfdtv.com/Account/SignUp.
