About
MODERN ANCIENT is a genre-bending beverage producer based in California and Arizona who makes natural ferments and spirits from rare quality grown botanicals, fruits, and grains which have not been altered by industrialism. The perspective of the brand is informed by the founder’s background in obsessive hospitality, punk/community perspective and natural ingredient cocktail bartending.
The core spirits are based on direct-source heirloom grains which are packed with flavor compounds showcasing the endless diversity and pleasure of pre-industrial plants. The density of flavor compounds ensure that the spirits evolve over time, even in bottle. To protect the delicacy and intricacy of these earthy flavors, the spirits are aged in old oak casks as opposed to new oak as to not add any wood sugars or masking flavors, and are usually bottled at or above 50% alc by vol.
99%+ of distilled spirits globally come from industrially grown and modified, environmentally and socially problematic monoculture agriculture. This is not done for the drinker or the farmer’s benefit. We offer an alternative to the status quo in both flavor and impact.
We directly source our grain from our farmers who treat their soil, environment, and workers with respect. We engage with the whole system and learn from our farmers to offer our drinkers interesting flavors, stories and facts rather than tired, fantastic marketing tales.
The design and flavor of these singular spirits comes from bartender turned distiller Rob Easter. With a naturalist’s holistic perspective, Rob has taken it upon himself to be the distiller he wanted to work with; one who focuses on the soil, learns and teaches by doing (and farming!), look at spirits as liquid agriculture, and considers that distillation is just one step of a multi-faceted process. Learning from Siebel Institute of Technology (distillation focus) to working for Kings County Distillery in NYC to taking the University of Arizona Master Gardener course, Rob sees his liquid art as something that is apart of labor/environmental activism and exhaling humanism in the era of artificial culture takeover.
Contact us to work with our spirits in your bar, get a custom cask, or to hire us for a special event.
Rob@WorkHorseRye.com
Our farmers
TEHACHAPI GRAINS PROJECT
Lead by the quality food maven Sherry Mandell in LA, TGP is a collaboration with Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms in the high elevation, soil-rich Tehachapi Valley just north of Los Angeles, CA. Their heirloom grains are articulate and memorable; and you’ll find that CA’s best restaurants and farmers market attendees are obsessed. Their rye has rich yet delicate earthy tones and their corn has a calming nuanced savory sweetness to it that confirms regenerative practices bring more flavor. Sherry is a strong community advocate and is one of those passionate farmers who have dedicated their entire lives essentially 24/7 to the cause.
FARMER MAI
Farmer Mai grains are rare gems on Earth, real treasure. Farmer Mai is a new wave educator, community activist, and quality plant grower in California, one for the books. We are lucky to buy their rye; the mushroom and herbaceous aromatics are just about as pleasant as the actual person who grows them. Farmer Mai received a James Beard Award Leadership Award, you can learn more about their work, and farming and rare seeds in general here. Upon reading their words, eating their grains, or tasting our whiskey from their rye, you’ll see exactly why Farmer Mai got that honor and why people are so passionate about them.
UTE MOUNTAIN UTE TRIBE
The Ute people, or Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pu (meaning "the people"), historically inhabited eastern Nevada, Utah, western Colorado, and parts of Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico before their land was systematically seized by the US government. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe now farm their glorious heirloom blue corn in the Four Corners region, specifically SW Colorado and they do so with resourceful and sustainable till and watering methods—they should know about sustainability, after all this is their ancient heirloom they have cultivated over an unknown quantity of thousands of years. Their blue corn tastes of great biscuit depth, a savory hearth bread flavor abounds like a bottomless sea. Like all blue corn, over the fermentation process the yeast produces acids that turnt he alkaline blue color into pink. We never get bored with that.
FRITZ DURST / TULE FARM
REED HAMILTON / GRASS VALLEY GRAINS
HAYDEN MILLS
AREVALOS
AARON & JOAN CARDOVA
YAVAPAI-APACHE NATION & THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
OAXACA
MISSION GARDEN
Oaxaca, Don Juan Velasco and family grow bolita belatove, an ancient pink corn which has become a favorite for our spirits. Buy a bottle here.
