J. Henry & Sons grew out of Henry Farms in Dane, Wisconsin, about 20 miles north of Madison, where the Henry family has raised seed corn since 1946. Joe Henry, who had kept the farm going through the 1980s farm crisis with his wife Liz, got the idea for a bourbon after visiting Kentucky's Bourbon Trail in the mid-2000s, and the family began making bourbon in 2009 from grain grown on the farm. The recipe is built around an heirloom red corn developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1939, which Joe's father had grown, together with heirloom wheat and Spooner rye, all re-propagated on the farm. The spirit is mashed, fermented and distilled under contract at 45th Parallel Distillery in New Richmond, Wisconsin, then aged on the farm in seasoned, toasted, #3-char new oak barrels inside cupola-topped rickhouses with no climate control. The first bottles, a 92-proof Small Batch bourbon, went on sale in April 2015, followed by the cask-strength Patton Road Reserve that August, and the company remains family-owned.