About Us
Nestled in historic Pleasant Valley, Pathfinder Farm is proud to bring you the finest spirits from our farm to your glass. Using heritage red corn and Appalachian Mountain spring water, we small-batch distill and bottle family favorite recipes to provide you pleasure with each sip!
Our Story: Growing a Dream
We’re Natalie, Emory, Nate and Sully Kraft – beginning farmers growing our dream in the Maryland countryside.
In 2016 we moved off a 41-foot sailboat and found ourselves searching for the perfect farm to create our own distilled spirits from our field to the flask.
We are both veterans – Natalie served in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard for six years and Nate served in the Navy for 10 years – and we’ve lived all over the world – Sasebo, Japan; Seattle, Washington and San Diego, California. After cruising around Mexico in a sailboat for a year and a half, we decided to leave the sailing life behind us and found ourselves in Pleasant Valley to be near family. We’re excited to see where Nate’s wild idea of starting a farm distillery takes us. Cheers to following new paths!
Since our farm’s inception in 2019, we’ve grown our team to 2 full time and 7 part time folks helping at the farm and at our year round tasting room in downtown Boonsboro, MD.
With Love and Kindness,
The Kraft Family
So why’s our farm called Pathfinder?
We wanted to name our farm something that has meaning about the place we live and our family. Pathfinder Farm sits at the northern edge of Pleasant Valley bounded by South Mountain to the east and Elk Ridge to the west. The Appalachian Trail is a hiking path that runs 2,190 miles from Maine to Georgia and along the ridge of South Mountain.
Nate was named after Natty Bumppo from the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenmore Cooper. One of Natty Bumppo’s nicknames was Pathfinder from the novel “The Pathfinder.” Nate’s family is historically Pennsylvania Dutch (historically peaceful, freedom-loving Germans who settled in PA) and Nate is an Eagle Scout. In Germany, the Scouting Program is called Pfadfinder and that literally translates to Pathfinder.
What about the symbology in the farm logo?
The compass rose symbolizes travel is used by hikers, adventurers and sailors. Nate, Natalie and Sully sailed more than 3,000 miles on their boat after Nate honorably separated from the Navy.
In the Barn
Down in the distillery barn, we work our magic with our own farm-grown and local ingredients.
Our non-GMO Bloody Butcher Red Corn is the base for our moonshine and whiskey. It’s mashed with pure Appalachian Mountain spring water from the farm. We ferment open top in 150 gallon batches. The final distillation, the spirit run, is small batch distilled in our 150 gallon moonshine still.
Our moonshine is flavored using simple, natural ingredients and to showcase our fine corn whiskey and fruit infusions.
Turning Sunshine into Moonshine
The Process
The first step to turning Sunshine into Moonshine begins right here on our family farm with the spring planting of our signature red corn. Shortly after planting, warm temperatures and a little rain cause the corn seed to send forth little shoots from the ground. This is the beginning of turning the sunlight into strong plants through photosynthesis.
We always hope for the corn to be knee-high by the 4th of July, and after that, it shoots up like a rocket. As the stalks grow taller then little ears of corn begin to grow. They start out white inside and as they reach final maturity the color changes to a beautiful deep red and burgundy color we love…