There’s a Spirit in my Whiskey
The Haunted Backstory of a Kansas Soil-to-Sip Distillery
Kansas native Hayes Kelman is a 5th generation farmer and a first generation distiller. But neither of those careers were a sure thing. His father encouraged him to go to college, telling him he wouldn’t want to return to the family farm, located an hour outside of Dodge City.
“That’s what farmer parent tell their kids. They tell you that farming’s a tough life.”
Hayes was insistent on returning, but he wanted to bring another revenue stream with him. He liked the idea of making whiskey, but he didn’t expect creating an award winning soil-to-sip distillery in the heart of Dodge City would take him so deep into the city’s past. Today, Boot Hill Distillery sits on the grounds of a former cemetery that was the final resting place for some of Kansas’ earliest residents — gunslinging outlaws who, well, didn’t quite make it out of Dodge.
As Kelman plotted and planned the distillery between farm work, his father was the one who discovered the building in downtown Dodge City that would later become their second business. He called his son to tell him he’d found the perfect place, but Hayes dithered.
“It was so ugly that your eyes just glazed by it. You didn’t pay attention to it. But that building is there, and it’s prominent.”
The building was owned at the time by the city, and in 2015, had sat vacant for seven years. Prior to that, after losing all of it’s permanent (living) tenants, it had been used by local police and fire departments for training. Bricks were falling out, windows were in bad shape, and the city was about to tear it down.
“When we went in to look around, you could see the sky in places, and there was a frozen waterfall down the stairs.” Not to mention, all the ghosts.
But Hayes was inspired, in no small part, by the buildings history. The property is built on the site of the former Boot Hill Cemetery, which earned it’s name back when Dodge City was the center of the Wild West, and the frontier town was ridden with outlaws and gunfights, and soon-to-be spooks.
“The guys died with their boots on and were buried in them,” Kelman explains, “and you could see them sticking out of the dirt in the shallow graves. That’s why it was called Boot Hill.” Almost 50 men, and one woman, were buried in the cemetery between 1872 and 1876. The first, according to legend, was a black man named Tex shot by a gambler named Denver in an act of senseless, alcohol-fueled violence. Bodies were often buried anonymously, scattered haphazardly across the hill, some without coffins, many without markers, and some, for unknown reason, with their boots removed and placed behind their heads.
But when the trains and cattle drives moved on, the city had to figure out what to do. So the bodies were dug up, moved, and the county’s first public school house was built on the cemetery land, opening in 1880. Another school house was built on the site a few years later because of shoddy workmanship, and possibly because of meddlesome spirits.
The second school stood on the site until 1927, when it was replaced by a new city municipal building. Naturally, a few more bodies were found upon the digging of the basement.
In the ’30s, Boot Hill housed the fire and police departments, water authority, jail and city courtroom, with much of the city being run out of the building. But over the decades, the building began to empty. By 1990, the fire station, the final city tenants, left. Between 1990 and 2008, the chamber of commerce, then a few non-profits, utilized the space. And likely ghosts.
The Kelmans approached the city about buying the building and, after encouraging the local government to seek public bids, purchased the building for just $10.
Starting in 2015, the Kelman’s took on the building ‘farm style,’ hiring as few contractors as possible. They replaced hundreds of panes of glass, removed the Spanish tile roof, reducing the building to bare bones and completely restoring it in less than two years.
The distillery building is now on National Historic Registry, which, along with the area’s exciting past, and all the resident spirits, has helped Kelman tell an important part of his city’s story that he says is too often over looked.
“Dodge City was born from a barrel of whiskey. Fort Dodge, the original town, was commissioned to protect the wagon trains on the Santa Fe trail. At a certain point, the general said Ft. Dodge was too drunk, so he outlawed whiskey within five miles. So the general store owner measured five miles from the Fort, put pillars of sod under a roof, and sold whiskey by the ladleful.” That guy, George Hoover, would live into the 1930s, and died a successful businessman.
Perhaps that same entrepreneurial spirit who created Dodge City is also who drives the distillery.
“If we can’t grow the grain, we’re not going to make alcohol out of it. We call it soil-to-sip, we have control over the whole process, from when the seed goes in the soil until customers pour out a glass [or in Boot Hill’s haunted tasting room, when they raise it to their lips].” Though even with the distillery running at full tilt, the business soaks up a relatively tiny share of the farms grain, with less than 1% of the farm’s corn and wheat turning into alcohol.
While some of Boot Hill’s bourbon and whiskey continues to age, their 100% wheat vodka, New American-style gin with sarsaparilla, and Bourbon Red Eye Mash are ready for sipping. And if you come by the tasting room, prepare yourself for artistic takes on Western folk lore elixirs, including old-fashioned ingredients like Prickly Ash Bitters.
“Our blends come from a lot of experimentation. If it tasted good, we looked at our notes and did things the same and different and made it taste better every time.”
Though balancing the demands of a being a full-time farmer and of launching a distillery can be challenging, Kelman says having his dad as an advisor and supporter is significant. Going forward, Kelman says he hopes to see Boot Hill become a national brand.
“We’re going to grow, but only from our epicenter out. Our core focus is Kansas and Missouri right now.”
Kelman says he’s also happy to be part of the revitalization of downtown Dodge City, despite some local hesitation.
“We had a church push back on us, thinking we were going to open some rowdy bar. But really, we’re a manufacturing plant with a craft cocktail lounge.” That perception, Kelman says, is really helping people, even in the heart of the Bible Belt, come around to supporting Boot Hill.
If you live in Kansas and Missouri, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Iowa by special order, or Illinois, keep an eye out for haunted Boot Hill liquors where you buy adult beverages.
Thanks for reading! This story came from an interview I did with Hayes Kelman, and the story was just so good, it merited highlighting. In the meantime, you might enjoy exploring more about modern food and agriculture, I bet you’d like to dip your toe into a story on ag futures trading, so I’ll just leave this here. @sarah_k_mock
