2nd Republic Whiskey! An Interview with Vermont’repreneur Kempton Randolph

Unlike the commodity farming model that dominates contemporary agriculture both in Vermont and beyond which views farms as raw food producing factories, I use an ecosystem model where farms are land-based systems that foster life and productivity. And this is exactly the reason why I do so many different things on my farm. They’re all intertwined and the parts feed off of one another. At the heart of my farm is my distillery. That’s where I transform the grains, fruit, herbs, maple sugar, wood and water from my land into small-batch whiskies, literally a condensation of the best flavors my farm has to offer in a beautifully packaged bottle. But the distillery is simply a hub with many spokes connected to the rest of the farm. My spent grains and distilling wastes go straight to feeding my pigs and chickens, and since opening my distillery I’ve cut the feed bill for my livestock by over 60%. The pigs, along with my cows provide ample amounts of manure that get spread on my grain fields each spring along with all my wood ashes saved up from the winter. This in turn provides much of the fertility my grain crops need to produce corn, oats and rye for the distillery. And this grain-whisky-pork positive feedback loop is just one example of many.

A. The most satisfying thing for me lately has been watching my five-year-old son grow up here. There’s just something about a boy and a farm that’s really magical. I love watching him interact with everything especially when we give him a little space and freedom to explore. He’ll spend an hour sitting and talking with our milking goats. Just today, our neighbors were walking by and he took their daughter over to see our new litter of week-old piglets without any prompting on my part. Maybe it’s because I had a very different childhood sheltered from much agricultural interaction, but I just love watching him turn into a little hayseed before my eyes.

The most difficult part of my life now is the balancing act of having so many balls in the air. When you’re homesteading, farming, doing value added agricultural products and raising two young children, there are never enough hours in the day. My wife and I sometimes say that our life is constant triage, deciding who needs attention the most at any given moment. But I think that’s the life of the small farmer, so we try not to sweat it too much. The trick is to find satisfaction with whatever you can accomplish. One of my favorite sayings is “happiness is reality minus expectations” So I try not to expect too much from anything or anybody especially myself, just do the best I can and take things one step at a time.

Q. What drew you to the idea of Vermont independence? What’s most attractive and most challenging?

A. I’ve always felt that northern New England, and more specifically Vermont is a place apart from the rest of the country. I’m someone that’s always self-identified as a yankee, and Vermont is where you’ll find the purest cultural heart of yankeeness still remaining. That’s what drew me to this state 15 years ago, and I think the cultural divide between here and the rest of the nation is only increasing. We’re an interesting mix of characteristics, this yankee spirit we have. We’re fiercely independent and individualistic, yet surprisingly compassionate and giving to those in need. We have a strong “live and let live” attitude that allows for a great diversity of actions and opinions between folks and I think it is key to the blossoming of creativity you see in our people. We’re exceedingly frugal and hardworking, and we take great pleasure in life’s simple pursuits. No where else in the country will you see so many backyard vegetable gardens as in Vermont, yet we have some of the longest winters in the US. In sum, we’re already a different kind of people that live in a different kind of place, and the cultural characteristics we share are exactly those needed by a free and truly independent people, and it’s time we change and localize our system of democratic governance to reflect that.

Q. How do to see yourself working on a more independent Vermont and a 2nd Vermont Republic?

A. Life in contemporary America is littered with dying institutions too massive and bloated to change and adapt, too corrupted by monied interests to achieve any positive outcomes for people ensnarled in them. And Vermont is no exception to this. Look at our educational system here in the state. It’s sucking the lifeblood out of our communities by driving property taxes to unsustainable levels, threatening to make the dream of property ownership unaffordable for the very children it’s supposed to be educating, while delivering poor quality educational results for the mountains of cash we shovel down it’s throat every year. In essence, public education in this state has become a racket. The narrative of declining student enrollment makes us believe our communities are shrinking, but could it be that parents have simply had enough of this failing institution and are finding alternatives to traditional public school? I think so. That’s why my wife and I homeschool our children. We don’t want them to participate in a system we think is failing its students, and one that amounts to little more than taxpayer funded daycare with a healthy dash of indoctrination.

We need to work on achieving our own independence first and then our collective independence will follow. Don’t like the corrupt systems that define modern American life? Simple, opt out. Our food system delivers poisonous, highly-addictive “food” products that damage the consumer and our environment, so don’t buy it and grow your own. My wife and I eat what we grow and can barter for and are basically down to buying flour, coffee and condiments at the store. This summer we’re planning to cut out the flour. My family has basically seceded from the food-industrial complex, and so can you. Most institutions we engage with, we can disengage with if we chose. That path is almost always harder and more challenging than the path of least resistance and false comfort offered up by the grifters that run modern life, but in return you get real purpose to your actions, real control over your decisions and security that comes from your own working hands and head. Everyone of us can start working on and implementing our own secession plan today and together our collective actions can become a revolution.

Q. What do you see for the future – of Vermont, the U.S., and the world?

A. The United States is an overburdened garbage barge leaking toxic waste that’s about to run aground on the rocky shoals of reality. Vermont would do good to jump ship now and make a swim for it, before we get roped into pulling this sucker up onto the beach where the scavengers are waiting to strip it for scrap. As for the world, Trump is right about one thing, globalism is dead, the end of cheap oil is killing it swiftly. Right now, a draft horse and a sharp axe is a better investment than any four-year degree. It’s time to re-localize, re-skill and re-volutionize our way into the future by learning from the past. We did it before and sooner or later (but probably sooner than most people think) we’ll do it again, and that’s how we become an independent Vermont.