11-30 IAN Cattle Vodka

 Lea Beckett and her husband Bill live in Driggs and started up a little business not long ago making vodka out of potatoes. But there is a fascinating sidebar. Not only is Grand Teton Vodka being well-received by humans, it’s also being well received by cattle: “The agricultural literature uniformly recommends to cattlemen that they try to get distillery byproducts as cattle feed because it is very nutritious. What is left in the bottom of our fermenters after we transfer our fermented potato mash over to our distiller is some spent yeast and potato solids. We pump that over to these 270 gallon totes that we have and after we distill and vaporize off all of the alcohol, what is left in the bottom of the still is kind of potato water and it still has some nutrients in it. The local ranchers come and pick this up and they mix it with their hay or straw for their cattle. So our residual waste material goes to feed the local cattle. And my guess is this the happiest cattle herd in the Valley. Well there is no alcohol and that because, well there is scant amounts but we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t get the alcohol out he cause that is our product.