This Surprisingly Amazing Wisconsin Liquor Is Made From An Unexpected Ingredient

I recently had the opportunity to sample a couple of products from a Wisconsin distillery that left me very pleasantly surprised.

The three different spirits surprised me not only by how good they taste, how smooth they are, and how inexpensive they are; but also by what one of the key ingredients is.

Liquor from milk? So very Wisconsin!

If Wisconsin is known for one thing, it's the state's dairy industry. Things like milk, cheese, and butter are the bread and butter of the state's many farms.

With all of the dairy operations in Wisconsin, it only makes sense that someone would jump into the interesting niche of using a dairy byproduct to create some very interesting varieties of liquor - and before you ask, no, they don't taste anything like milk!

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The liquor brand TenHead, made in Central Wisconsin, traces its history back to the 1800s. A creation of the Knowlton House Distillery in Mosinee, just south of Wausau, the signature TenHead vodka and gin varieties are distilled using the sugars found in milk.

How do you get liquor from milk?

While Knowlton didn't invent the process, it isn't a commonly used one.

The idea is to use milk sugars in a byproduct of making cheese to ferment alcohol. At its core, that's how all alcohol products are made, using sugars to ferment alcohol. The use of sugars from milk is certainly a very "Wisconsin" novelty that is way better than you'd imagine.

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Even though you might assume that lactose-intolerant people might need to be leery, these liquor products are both lactose-free and gluten-free. The lactose-free part is due to the distillation process.

Knowlton uses this process to make their TenHead Vodka as well as two types of TenHead Gin, their Woodland Dry and Meadow Cut varieties.

Knowlton also makes a whiskey, but it doesn't use dairy products, but rather normal grains.

What's different about these liquors made from milk?

The biggest thing is just how smooth they are. The use of this type of sugar leads to very premium, "velvety" properties to the mouthfeel of these spirits.

The vodka also has a slightly sweet taste without the traditional burn you'd expect with many vodkas. Both gin varieties have some of the same properties, offering their own more distinct flavors you'd expect with a good gin.

The TenHead Vodka has a 40% alcohol by volume. The TenHead Woodland Dry Gin has a 44% ABV and their Meadow Cut Gin has a 42% ABV.

I tried all three of these products on the rocks, and all three of them are exceptionally smooth and have a very premium and accessible taste. Even the bottles look very high-end, but the price shocked me.

It might vary a little from store to store, but the vodka is around $16 per bottle, and both gin varieties are slightly more than $20 per bottle as of the time of this article being written. It's an impressively premium-looking and tasting line of spirits for good prices.

You can find their products at a number of Wisconsin liquor stores and is served at a sizable number of bars across the Badger State. Here's their "Find A Bottle" map to locate some TenHead if you want to try it.