Photos by Michael Piazza

As kids growing up on Charlescote Farm, brothers Dave and Will Willis learned the value of hard work. They also learned to source anything they needed from their own land and to treasure the land and its bounty. Run by the Willis family for four generations, Charlescote stretches 300 acres across bucolic Sherborn. The farm taught the brothers grit, self-reliance and ingenuity—lessons that inform their business philosophy to this day.

Inspired by early experimentation making apple brandy with apples from Charlescote’s orchards and by the discovery of a vault full of their grandfather’s handcrafted spirits, the Willises launched Bully Boy Distillers in 2010. They started with a simple goal: Make superior-quality spirits with local ingredients and a focus on craft. But anyone with experience farming knows simple does not mean easy, nor is it ever as simple as it sounds.

In keeping with the golden rules of community, sustainability and respect for land instilled in Dave and Will by their parents, Bully Boy’s growth strategy prioritizes patience and zero waste. Sustainability is “a huge area of focus for Bully Boy, as we feel it is an area not being addressed enough within our industry and we’d like to change that and lead by example,” says Will, who oversees finance and business development.

They use water from Quabbin Reservoir, capturing process water in collection vessels for reuse. A large portion of their water cools their condenser, the apparatus that converts alcohol vapor back to liquid form. This water is completely sterile so it can be re-used as a base for the “mash,” or for cleaning purposes. The distillery re-uses about 10,000 gallons of water a week in this way.

Spent molasses wash, a high-nutrient by-product of the blackstrap molasses Bully Boy uses for their rum distillation, goes back to the farm where it enhances the feed for happy Charlescote cows. They even process their grain at a cousin’s mill in Taunton.

At the distillery in Roxbury, customers who return Bully Boy glass bottles to be recycled receive a 10% discount on their next purchase. And Bully Boy composts all food waste, about 50 pounds a week of ingredients used in cocktails and spirits production, things like citrus peels and botanicals.

Now Bully Boy is embarking on a step to further close the production loop: using corn grown on Charlescote Farm in their products. “We’re working to control our supply chain for our corn by utilizing sustainable growing methods on our family farm in Sherborn, growing higher-quality corn within 20 miles of the distillery,” says Will.

“We would like to get closer to controlling the whole infrastructure. One of our primary motivating factors in starting the distillery was to be able to offer a grain-to-glass experience.”

Bully Boy is the only distillery in Massachusetts currently taking this step, vertically integrating their supply chain to better serve the environment and customer. They are part of a larger trend of small-batch distillers using local heirloom corn varieties.

Charlescote harvests 10 acres of yellow dent corn, primarily for feed. In this expanded partnership between farm and distillery, an acre is allocated for use in two bourbons—one wheated bourbon and another using malted rye. Over time, Will and Dave expect the allocation to grow. Ultimately, they will grow an heirloom variety called Bloody Butcher, named for its dramatic red color. Native Americans introduced Bloody Butcher to settlers in the 1840s.

Working with farm manager Andy Tucker, they will start small to test yield and sugar content and to ease the impact on Charlescote Farm. Achieving complete environmental sustainability does not happen overnight. Bully Boy requires up to 13,200 pounds of corn a month, an amount not easily sourced from Charlescote. Weather, planning and the need to protect space used for competing crops factor into the implementation of this new initiative. Testing a small crop last year, Will and Dave harvested too early resulting in corn with low sugar content. Bottles of bourbon made from Charlescote Farm are still a couple of years away. But as Will and Dave learned growing up, the things that take the most work yield the best results.

As Dave, master distiller, says proudly, “You need to do the things that make being small worth it.”

bullyboydistillers.com

This story appeared in the Winter 2020 issue.