Heidi Bolger and David Wallace, with Sarah and Richard Anderson, bought a 120-acre farm in Springdale Township near Thompsonville in 2011; the two-generation farm had sat idle for more than two decades. A 2013 trip to distilleries in northern Scotland, including a farm distillery on Islay, gave them the plan, and Iron Fish opened in 2016 as Michigan's first farm distillery, named for the steelhead that run the nearby Betsie River. The team grows grain on about 60 of its 80 field acres and mills, mashes, ferments, distills and ages on site, using a pot still built in Germany by Kothe for whiskey and a column still for vodka, gin and other clear spirits. Alongside its own Mad Angler whiskeys, named for the writing of northern Michigan poet Michael Delp, Iron Fish buys bourbon and rye from other distilleries and finishes them in maple syrup, Caribbean rum, cognac, sherry, mezcal and stout casks; its barrel library now exceeds 2,500 barrels. Effective December 31, 2025, Richard and Sarah Anderson sold their ownership interest to Wallace and Bolger, who are now the sole owners.