Our spirits begin with a simple foundation: organic grains grown in Wisconsin’s Driftless Region. This land, untouched by glaciers, is rich with unique soils that shape the flavor of everything cultivated here. For our neutral grain spirit, the backbone of most of our products, we use a mash bill of 90 percent soft red winter wheat and 10 percent malted barley. These grains carry the terroir of Wisconsin, connecting our spirits to the land and the community around us.

Mashing

Unlocking the Grain

Mashing is the first step in transforming the natural sugars in the grain into spirit. Wheat and barley flour is combined with hot water in a mash tun, creating the right conditions for enzymes to break down starches into fermentable sugars. After 90 minutes, this conversion yields a sweet liquid known as “wash.” Unlike brewing beer, we don’t boil the wash or add hops. The goal is to collect simple sugars, allowing the yeast to thrive during fermentation.

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Fermentation

Letting Yeast Do Its Work

Once cooled, yeast is added to the wash, and fermentation begins. For four to five days, these single-celled organisms convert sugars into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and esters (compounds that add subtle fruity notes to the final spirit). Healthy yeast is essential: happy yeast produces clean, flavorful alcohol, while stressed yeast can produce off flavors. At the end of fermentation, the result is a low alcohol liquid around 11% ABV that resembles a tart wheat beer. It isn’t something to enjoy on its own but provides the perfect foundation for distillation.

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Distillation

Where Science Meets Art

Simply stated, distillation is the process of separating compounds based on their boiling points. At State Line we use two German made stills: a 2,500 liter pot still named “Helga” and a 1,000 liter pot-hybrid still with dual vodka columns named “Aggie”, both affectionally named by our distillation team, to achieve this separation. Both stills are versatile enough to produce a wide range of spirits, although each requires a high degree of skill to operate.
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As the wash heats, alcohol vapors rise and are collected in three parts: heads, hearts, and tails. Heads contain unwanted compounds like methanol and ethyl acetate, hearts are the pure, flavorful center cut, and tails contain heavier compounds that may add structure to aged spirits but are minimized in clear styles. The careful separation of these three fractions is guided by both sensory analysis and precise measurements of ABV, blending science with the art and experience of our distillers.