Dr. Patrick “Pat” Heist

“The Fermentation doctor”

Dr. Patrick Heist is the Co-Founder, Co-Owner and Chief Scientific Officer of both Ferm Solutions and Wilderness Trail.

Dr. Pat Heist and Shane Baker were in a rock band together in the late ’90’s. Dr. Pat Heist studied micro-biology in college including bacteria, yeast and fungi. He then moved into plant pathology in field crops earning a B.S., M.S. and Ph. D degrees at the University of Kentucky. He then spent 6 years at the Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine as a Medical Microbiology Professor.

He then founded Ferm Solutions along with business partner Shane Baker in December 2006 in Danville Kentucky. Ferm Solutions offers numerous services and products to brewers and distillers including research, engineering, product development, technical services including process optimization for both fuel and beverage alcohol industries. They work with around 200 distilleries around the world. They also offer lab services focusing on fermentation including microbiological testing for yeast health, bacterial analysis, pH and yeast and bacteria molecular identification amongst others. In addition, they also provide training for the entire process of distillation and offer consulting services.

In February 2013 Dr. Heist once again with partner Shane Baker founded Wilderness Trail distillery which has become one of the fastest growing bourbon distilleries in the world. Wilderness Trail distillery produces numerous bourbons including both high rye and wheated bourbons and rye whiskey using their own proprietary yeast strains. They use an infusion mashing process that is proprietary to Wilderness Trail where they are able to use the ideal temperatures to gelatinize starches and not degrade the quality of grain resulting in a soft and flavorful distillate.

Wilderness Trail uses a sweet mash process instead of the usual sour mash that most distilleries use. Wilderness Trail claims to be the first to solely use sweet mashing in Kentucky and they believe that by not acidifying the mash provides a flavor forward product with a softer finish.

They distill, age and bottle everything in Danville Kentucky with a 250-gallon Vendome Pot Hybrid Still originally and as they grew added a 40 foot tall, 18 inch diameter Vendome column still with a 250 gallon doubler. With the continued growth, they added an additional 40 foot tall, 36 inch diameter Vendome column still and 500 gallon doubler allowing them to have flexible systems ranging from smaller scale production to large scale production with up to 216 barrels per day ran 24 hours a day. They currently fill a 20,000+ barrel warehouse in about 100 days.

Wilderness Trail uses Independent Stave Company barrels with a #4 char, barreled at 110 proof for bourbons and 100 proof for rye whiskey. Their rick houses are onsite and age to a minimum of 4 years, but have since released 6 and 8 year age stated bourbons.

Dr. Heist is an Adjunct Professor at James B. Beam Institute in the College of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky and has given a TedTalk on the process of making bourbon starting with the aging process, types of grain required to produce a bourbon and what happens inside the barrel warehouses before it is bottled. In addition Dr. Heist has published and contributed to numerous research articles.

In early November 2022, Campari Group based in Milan Italy, owners of the Wild Turkey distillery, agreed to purchase a 70% share of the Wilderness Trail Distillery for $420 million, with a distillery valuation of $600 million, with an option to purchase the remaining 30% in 2031 for $180 million. At the time this was the second largest purchase by the Campari Group, second only to their purchase of Grand Marnier. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2022.

Contributed By Daniel Snyder, Whiskey Founders Committee Chair, Champaign, Illinois