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, mineral-rich soil 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 umami 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. Tehachapi is the grain source chosen by NOMA LA ‘26 for their Modern Ancient custom cask; when Tehachapi grains are made and finished in our signature aging protocol (high quality used oak, rather than new oak so that you can taste all the nuances and not the oak sugars) these may be the most food friendly and California cuisine appropriate grains out there. To us, California cuisine is simply a fresh ingredient and balanced style of cooking wherein the ingredient flavor (whether cooked, raw, or elements of both) is much more important than the process flavor, we use this same protocol when making and aging whiskey.

FARMER MAI
Farmer Mai grains are rare gems on Earth, real treasures. 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, and everyone in their community knows this was well earned! 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 their work. The rye grain itself is a giving grain, it gives to the soil much more than others; this is seen in Mai as well, we buy their grain but Mai gives to the whole state of California. Tucked into a beautiful country side next to organic Pinot Noir, Mai’s heirloom grains thrive in living soil mostly fed by rain and rotated with many heirloom Asian vegetables and herbs. To taste Mai’s rye in our whiskey is to taste more than just a spicy whiskey; you actually taste soil and the endless symphonic notes of soil and crop diversity.

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
THE source for our highly prized, lusciously savory/olive-oil tasting Floriani red corn. Fritz is a real California original who made the difficult yet admirable long bet for regenerative practices; this was considered crazy as hell in 1980s when people were nose deep in industrial food itself and the dogmatic convenience-obsessed marketing. Fritz and team at multiple plots in Yolo County rotate many plants like heirloom wheat, barley, and corn to a high degree of quality and with a high degree of respect for the whole system. Their Floriani Red Corn (named by the Italians but of course like all corn was developed and stewarded for thousands of years by many indigenous peoples) is our signature California cuisine corn given it’s depth and intense diversity. Since we employ USED oak instead of NEW oak (Bourbon requires new oak, we do not submit to that format), we are able to show you the endless flavors of these rare, expensive grains rather than a whiskey that simply tastes like an oak barrel. Floriani is a corn that shows more earthy and savory facets, rather than, for example corns with more fruity/citrusy flavors like Bolita Belatove pink Oaxacan corn and Painted Mountain red/black corn.

“I used to just look at the plant itself and ask, ‘What does a plant need to grow?’ Today I look at many different things. I look at myself, my family, my employees. My number one focus today besides employees is my soil. If I give to my soil, my soil will give back to me,”
-Fritz Durst