The Moore family has lived on Second Intention Farm since 1935, when it was purchased by “Papa” Floyd Moore and his wife, Charlene. After Papa and Granny passed, their sons, themselves in their 60s and 70s, decided that farming cattle on the farm was no way to retire. So, in 2017 they sold off the herd and settled down to (theoretically) work a little less.
But you can’t just “quit” farming, when you live on 100-plus-acre farm. What the farm needed was a new crop and a new purpose.
So, in 2019, over a Christmas vacation, James H. Moore, Floyd’s eldest grandson, convinced his wife April to move back to his family’s farm with him to grow corn and build a farm distillery.
It took a lot of convincing.
The 2020 lockdowns happened and, as she too spent hours diving into what would be required and how it could happen, the dream took shape. It became more than a dream; it became a mission. To create products made on the land, from things grown on the land, and to do it all while preserving the family legacy and the beautiful property they both loved.
In the intervening years we’ve restored the farm’s historic springhouse, the natural source of water for everything we make. We’ve built permaculture beds to transform the clay soil, so we can grow the fruits and herbs we want to put in our products (and we have many more yet to build). We’ve inventoried the array of species we have on the property that might be useful as botanicals in our gins and brandies. We’ve begun renovations to the house we plan to move to (Papa and Granny’s). And we’ve begun developing areas of the farm to welcome our guests.
We’re building something new here, a true farm distillery in southern Middle Tennessee. Renovating and reusing the buildings that our family built decades ago. We’re growing new crops, as sustainably as we can. But we’re also making sure we preserve the beautiful land and resources that Papa purchased almost a hundred years ago.
Along the way, we’ve had to learn new skills, but we’ve done so under the tutelage of our family, using the same vintage farm tools and equipment our family has used for decades. Mechanical, not electrical. Analog, not digital. Recycled, reused, renewed. But easy for us to repair ourselves and reliable no matter what comes.
We promise you we’ll always work this way. Local, sustainable, natural, focused, driven. Small by necessity to make that happen. Our footprint may be small, but we hope it will lead to something larger than us. An acknowledgement that less is sometimes more, bigger is not necessarily better, and quantity does not equal quality.
We’ve been walking this path a while now. It’s turned out to be a much longer journey than we anticipated. But we’re still resolute, and we have some great footsteps to follow in. Join us on the journey.
Engineered Spirits, hand-crafted for your enjoyment. Sit a spell.