At the start of the 2000s, only two ears of corn remained.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/How-one-distillery-brought-back-a-strain-of-corn-from-near-extinction-FT-BLOG0924-02-d783d29c8d814a02b166e968813e5f71.jpg "Scott Blackwell and staff of High Rise Distilling Co. examining an ears of Jimmy red corn.")
Courtesy of High Rise Distilling Co.
Ann Marshall and Scott Blackwell didn’t set out to help save a part of the country’s agricultural history when they opened High Wire Distilling Company in 2013. The husband-and-wife duo’s focus was to create a unique and memorable whiskey, one which celebrated the best of South Carolina’s produce. But when introduced to James Island, or “Jimmy” Red corn, their stories became entangled with that of the endangered grain, and ultimately, its resurgence.
At the beginning of the 1900s, Jimmy Red corn was pervasive across Appalachia, and it slowly spread east into South Carolina. The corn was used in everything from moonshine to grits due to its nutty, sweet flavor. And with a high oil content, it was an ideal energy source for livestock feed. But as other varieties of corn thrived in industrial agriculture production, Jimmy Red fell out of favor, noted by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity.
As a crop, it requires high-touch, both literally and figuratively. The grain is an open pollinator, which means that it can be easily fertilized by pollen from other corn, which threatens its purity. So it must be pollinated by hand. And, according to Blackwell, it also has a reputation for being comparatively more enticing to deer and racoons.
Courtesy of High Wire Co. Distilling
By the end of the 20th century, the corn was near extinction. The last farmer to cultivate the crop had passed away, leaving only two ears to fellow South Carolina farmer and seed enthusiast Ted Chewning. Having saved varieties of nearly extinct corns, beans, heirloom radishes, watermelons, and field peas, Chewning planted Jimmy Red over the next few years to increase the seed harvest each season.
Word spread of the corn, and it soon started to pop up on menus throughout the state. Chef and restaurateur Sean Brock famously became the first to use Jimmy Red in his kitchens at McCrady’s, where he was partner and executive chef, and Husk, which he founded in 2010. Nearly a decade later, Brock was featured in an episode of the Netflix show, Chef’s Table, which focused on his drive to celebrate the flavors of Lowcountry cooking. His use of Jimmy Red corn played a central role in the story. But at that time, Jimmy Red had yet to be explored as an option to make bourbon.
Enter Marshall and Blackwell. As they worked on the concept and buildout for High Wire Distilling, they wanted to make sure their bourbon stood out from the rest. “You can’t outdo Maker’s Mark,” says Marshall. “And we didn’t want to.”
Neither were convinced that Dent corn, the common agricultural variety used in whiskey distillation, was what they wanted to include in their bourbon. They teamed with Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills, which specializes in heirloom grains, to identify the ideal strain of corn for their whiskey. Roberts walked them through a tasting of more than 20 varieties, with Jimmy Red saved for last. He introduced it by saying, ‘…and this is the one you’re going to use to make your whiskey.’
“When Glenn gave us this little bit of red corn, I was like, ‘How does this guy know anything about how the whiskey is going to turn out?’ He does grits,” says Blackwell. “We were still pretty early on, so I was like, I’ll just use a cupping method to give me a glimpse of what’s going on with this corn.”
Courtesy of High Wire Co. Distilling
Blackwell, who worked for years in the coffee business, implemented a cold cupping process as he sampled corn for its potential to make whiskey. Similarly to how coffee is tested to identify each strain’s characteristics, Blackwell steeped the grains in water. But rather than make a cup of coffee, he made something more akin to porridge. “It’s not something you’d want to eat,” says Blackwell. “But it’s good for identifying the right characteristics for a good whiskey.”
Instead of tasting for flavor, Blackwell looked for other subtle clues, like minerality and the presence of mildew. The high-oil content that made Jimmy Red so popular as livestock feed played a big part in its success as a whiskey grain, as it coats the pallet and creates a unique mouthfeel.
“Minerality is the baseline that tells us it has the right starch content, that it’s going to have a beautiful conversion,” said Marshall during a seminar on whiskey at the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston. “What we loved the most about Jimmy Red is that it’s really sweet, but it’s not a high-fructose corn syrup sweetness that you can get from a lot of bourbons. It’s more like a nectar or honey sweetness.”
After much trial and error, it became clear that Jimmy Red was the right fit for their flagship bourbon. “I would look at yellow corn, blue corn, other red corn, and I kept using Jimmy Red as the control,” says Blackwell. “But it’s so unique and it had that perfect minerality we were looking for. Glenn was spot on.”
That unique flavor, of baking spices and caramel corn, allowed them to create a product that’s quite different from other bourbons, most of which use some type of mixture of corn, rye, and wheat. High Wire’s flagship bourbon skips rye and wheat altogether, utilizing only 100% Jimmy Red corn.
Courtesy of High Wire Co. Distilling
Marshall and Blackwell started with enough seed to plant 2.5 acres of Jimmy Red, which they planted in partnership with Clemson University. Today, the team has 450 acres planted across the state between four farms. In 2024, the team filled its 5,000th barrel of whiskey.
What started as a passion project to save a bit of South Carolina’s agricultural past led to the production of one of the state’s most highly awarded whiskeys. In 2018, the team was named Overall Winner at the Made in the South Awards. And in 2020, Marshall was nominated in the Outstanding Wine, Spirits, or Beer Producer category by the James Beard Foundation.
“And just to think this all came about from two remaining ears of corn,” says Marshall. “Such a big part of South Carolina’s past is having a major impact on the state’s culinary future.”
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