The Story of Eight Oaks Farm Distillery
Why a blog? While we love the immediacy of social media, we launched a blog to share a more intimate look at not only Eight Oaks, but also the industry overall.
It’s called the Hearts Cut, but more on why in a future post.
In the meantime, you can expect regular posts about the good things happening at Eight Oaks, around our community, and within our industry.
How something good was born out of terrible news.
The best place to begin is to tell you how we got started.
Chad Butters, our Founder and CEO, was 25 years into a career as an Army Aviator when everything changed on June 1, 2012.
That’s when Chad and his wife Jodi were rocked by the news that Jodi had colon cancer.
One day, while Jodi was in bed recovering from surgeries, chemo, and radiation, they talked about what was most important to them in life.
As they talked they realized for them it came down to five things:
- Spending more time with family
- Starting a business (something they had always wanted to do)
- Working together every day and being home together every night
- Working in a field related to agriculture
- And finally, simply having fun
They were passionate about checking off the items on their list, and after many months of researching opportunities they discovered the field of craft distilling,
Starting a distillery would allow them to pursue what was most important to them in life, and Eight Oaks Farm Distillery was born.
It’s their passion that guides us today.
Time for a name.
Chad’s Grandfather started the tradition of signing off letters to his family with a figure eight, which represents the eight letters in “I Love You”.
Through generations the “8” evolved from letters, to quick notes on the fridge, and then text messages and emails, but it never lost its simple, but impactful meaning to our family.
Today we continue to use the “8” as a sign of love and admiration for our friends and family.
The Oak tree is a symbol of strength, nature, and longevity. It also provides the wood for the barrels that distillers have used for centuries to age their spirits.
The combination of the “8” and the Oak Tree resulted in our name, Eight Oaks.
Who are we and what do we do?
We are Pennsylvania’s only veteran-owned, family-run, farm distillery that creates award winning spirits, with a focus on making our community a better place.
One way we do this is through our partnerships with three nonprofit organizations: Cancer Support Community of the Greater Lehigh Valley, Farmer Veteran Coalition, and Parkland CARES Food Pantry, where a portion of every purchase you make goes directly to one of those three organizations.
We give these organizations more than just money; we give them our attention, our time, and our hearts.
We’re located in the rolling farmlands of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. We were officially founded on April 26, 2013. On November 10, 2015, all the distillation equipment was delivered, and our first run at the distillery took place on December 2, 2015.
Fun trivia: The first spirit we ran was Applejack.
We opened our doors to the public on January 10, 2016, and thanks to your generous support we continue to grow our presence in the Lehigh Valley and throughout Pennsylvania.
We grow all our own grains, including corn, wheat, rye, and barley to craft a wide range of award-winning spirits, including Bourbon, Rye Whiskey, Vodka, and Gin.
We source other ingredients to create unique spirits such as Applejack, Rum, and Ocho Robles—our version of a traditional tequila.
We support the growth of local jobs by welcoming our crew into our family and providing them a career where they can learn and grow.
Most importantly, everyone is welcome at Eight Oaks, where you can expect a quality product, an authentic experience, and a commitment to the community.
For us, we don’t just make whiskey, we make a difference.
If you’d like to learn more about Eight Oaks check out our latest YouTube video!
As we write more we’d love for you to share, comment, and tell us what you want to see in future blog posts. You can do that by sending your feedback to Josh at jvandenberg@eightoaksdistillery.com.
We’ll work as many questions into future posts as we can, and for those topics selected we’ll make sure to send you a fun prize pack.
Hope to see you soon, cheers!
