Alternative Corn Varieties for the Michigan Craft Distilling Industry
- Research Date
- 2025
- Authors
- Brook Wilke, James DeDecker, Nicole Shriner, Maninder Singh
- Priorities
- Crop Quality, New Varieties, Product Development
- Crop Categories
- Corn, Grain
- Beverage Categories
- Spirits
In 2024-2025, our team received support from the Michigan Craft Beverage Council to continue investigating alternative corn varieties for Michigan distillers, with the goal of identifying unique varieties of corn suited to Michigan’s climate and with favorable flavor qualities inherent in the spirit they produce. We’ve been able to categorize over 20 varieties by the region where they can perform agronomically and start describing grain quality and flavor that can be expected from them. Several varieties (Wapsie Valley, Oaxacan Green and MN 13) are being studied at larger scales in collaboration with distillers and farmers to enable expanded production.