From Farm to Bottle: How Two Wisconsin Sisters Are Building a Bourbon Legacy on 150 Years of Family Land
There is a particular kind of stubbornness that runs through families who have worked the same land for generations — a refusal to let go of what their ancestors sacrificed to build, even when the math no longer makes easy sense. For Becky and Jennifer Popek of Waushara County, Wisconsin, that stubbornness didn't manifest as resignation. It manifested as bourbon.
True Harvest Bourbon Company is a sister-owned bourbon company located in the heart of downtown Wild Rose, Wisconsin. It is the kind of origin story the American whiskey industry rarely gets to tell — one rooted not in venture capital or trend-chasing, but in grief, duty, agricultural heritage, and a graduate certificate from the University of Louisville. The Popeks didn't stumble into bourbon. They were led to it by their land, their father, and a map of Waushara County's soil.
The Popek Family: Four Generations on Wisconsin Ground
Four generations ago, the Popek family came to America, seeking a better way of life and a chance to have their own land, and settled in Wild Rose, Wisconsin. What they built there was modest by the standards of large agricultural operations but enormous in terms of what it meant to the family line that followed. The farm passed down through the family, with each new generation always respecting and honoring those that came before.
Their dad, Pete Popek, was the family's most recent generation — just a regular guy with the independent streak of a family farmer who worked very hard at two jobs, the farm and the local forge, determined to do whatever it took to keep the Popek farm going for the next generation. That kind of man doesn't leave a soft legacy. He leaves acreage, and he leaves a question: what are you going to do with it?
The Popeks inherited the farm after their father, Peter, died in 2021. The loss reoriented both sisters. Their parents had divorced, and they spent their weekends with their dad on the farm and with their mom in the Fox Valley. Jennifer graduated from high school in Wild Rose and stayed, while Becky moved with their mother to Pennsylvania. Years passed, careers were built, and the distance between them grew comfortable — until it didn't.
"For a number of years, Becky and I saw each other a couple of times a year," Jennifer said. "When Dad passed away, both of us realized that we had to come together a little more. At the time, I was managing mom's health, as well as the farm and a few other things." Grief has a way of clarifying what actually matters. For the Popeks, what mattered was the farm — and keeping it alive in the family for whatever generations might come next.
The Question That Started Everything: What Do You Do With the Land?
The idea for the business started with what was already growing in the family farm's fields. "Dad had rye in the fields," Jennifer said. "We looked at the idea of what we want to do to keep the farm going, keep it in the family for generations."
The answer was already in the ground. When they realized that Waushara County grows all the grains that make bourbon and they had some of those grains on the farm, Jennifer went back to school to the University of Louisville for a graduate certificate in distilled spirits. That's not a casual decision. Pursuing formal distilling education while managing a farm and a career transition takes the kind of commitment that separates people who talk about starting a spirits brand from those who actually do it.
"We started this, because we have a fourth-generation farm," Jennifer Popek said. "Farming and agriculture has been a big, popular experience for us and our family. With all the grains being grown in Waushara County to make bourbon, we decided this is a great place. This is home for us."
University of Louisville, Brown-Forman Veterans, and a Business Plan That Held Up
Jennifer's decision to enroll at the University of Louisville — home to one of the country's most respected distilled spirits programs — was more than an academic exercise. It was reconnaissance. She returned not just with technical knowledge of fermentation chemistry and barrel aging, but with a fully developed business plan and something even more valuable: validation from people who knew the industry from the inside out.
Many of the professors were former executives at Brown-Forman, and they recommended that the sisters move forward with the business plan. Those professors said that even though they weren't on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, this is exactly what Wisconsin needs. Brown-Forman, for context, is the company behind Old Forester, Woodford Reserve, and Jack Daniel's — people who have spent their careers building some of the most recognizable American whiskey brands in existence. When executives of that caliber look at a business plan from a Wisconsin farm woman and tell her to go forward, it means something.
The endorsement wasn't just flattering — it was strategic confirmation. The American craft distilling movement has been expanding well beyond its traditional geography for over a decade now, and industry veterans understand that authenticity, terroir, and a compelling story can compete with provenance in ways that would have seemed impossible twenty years ago. The Popeks had all three.
The Craft Model: Sourcing Smart While Building Toward Something Bigger
One of the more misunderstood aspects of the craft bourbon world is how new distilleries actually get their product to market in the early years. Aging bourbon takes time — typically a minimum of two years for the most basic expressions, and far longer for anything worth putting a premium label on. That reality has forced many craft distillers into creative sourcing arrangements, and the Popeks are no different.
They are currently working with a distillery in North Carolina to bring already existing barrels of bourbon to Wild Rose. They blend, proof, and bottle on site in Wild Rose and do their own labeling — which is why they can brand-manufacture, because they are a hands-on distillery. This is a legitimate and well-established path in the craft spirits industry, used by dozens of respected brands that eventually transition into full estate production as their own grain supply matures and their barrel programs develop.
"We are a bourbon company," Becky said. "We are part of the manufacturing process, which means we make our bourbon and blend it, proof it, bottle it here in the building."
The longer game, though, is firmly rooted in the family farm itself. True Harvest Bourbon Company believes that the best bourbon must come from the best ingredients, and they source all of their grains from their farm or local Wisconsin farms, supporting the local economy and sustainable agriculture. That's not marketing language — it's a production philosophy that takes years to execute properly.
Crop Rotation, Soil Science, and the Patience of a Farmer's Daughter
Getting from sourced barrels to a fully estate-produced bourbon is not a flip of a switch. It requires the kind of agricultural patience that is native to anyone who has spent serious time on a working farm. The sisters knew that they wanted to take grains from the farm, but crop rotation had to occur to make sure the soil was ready to produce good-flavored grains.
"We're currently doing crop rotation on the farm," Jennifer said. "Being a good steward of the land is also part of this process, and making sure that we have the right nutrients necessary for a good, quality product is part of our next step."
They're learning from and working with some local farmers and the Farm Bureau for guidance. This approach — threading together agricultural expertise, academic training, and industry mentorship — reflects a sophisticated understanding that making great bourbon is an exercise in patience, science, and community, not just marketing. The grain that eventually goes into a True Harvest barrel will be grown on land the Popek family has worked for over a century, nurtured through a deliberate soil preparation process that their father and grandfather never anticipated but would almost certainly recognize as good farming.
Opening Day and the Main Street Comeback
Becky and Jennifer Popek opened their doors at 457 Main St. in Wild Rose on December 5, 2025, in a building that formerly housed The Chatterbox, a popular diner, and later Kelly T's, another restaurant. The choice of that space is quietly symbolic. Main Street storefronts in small Midwestern towns have been closing for decades, casualties of economic consolidation, changing consumer habits, and population drift toward cities. When a new business opens in one of those spaces — not a chain, not a franchise, but a family-owned venture with deep roots in the community — it registers as more than a commercial transaction.
The interior of True Harvest reflects the same sensibility. Rather than leaning into the rustic cliché of distressed wood and exposed brick that has become shorthand for "craft" in urban markets, the Popeks built something warmer. Guests can enjoy handcrafted bourbon, cocktails, and mocktails, charcuterie boards, and small snacks in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere, and can unwind indoors or in an outdoor space. The selection also includes cigars, and the calendar runs through various events throughout the year including live music, tastings, and special gatherings.
What True Harvest is selling, in the broadest sense, is not just spirits. It is an experience plus community, with many events that often feature live music on the weekends. The programming reflects that clearly: they have held an Old Fashioned making activity with their two bourbons and their rye whiskey, a hat burning event where designs are burned into cowboy hats and decorated with ribbons, a painting activity with a guest artist, a 1920s murder mystery, and they were pleased to have requests to host bachelorette parties and small groups of fly fishermen gathering to tie flies.
Jennifer said they'd love to host a sharing of local stories of bootlegging. That particular event idea is pitch-perfect for Waushara County, a region whose rural character and agricultural heritage make it easy to imagine that Prohibition-era spirits activity left a few unrecorded chapters in the local history books.
Two Careers, One Mission, and 90 Miles Between Them
Running a distillery is hard. Running one while holding down separate careers in education and farming — split between two cities nearly a hundred miles apart — is the kind of logistical challenge that would break a less determined partnership.
Becky Popek, who stepped down earlier this year from her position as an elementary school teacher at Glenbrook Elementary School in Pulaski to become associate principal at Rock Ledge Elementary School in Seymour, opened the bourbon distillery business with her sister Jennifer. Jennifer left her healthcare career and moved back to the family farm in the town of Springwater between Wild Rose and Saxeville, while Becky makes the 90-minute trip from her Green Bay home to Wild Rose to help run the business.
The commitment involved in that commute — regularly logging 180 miles round-trip on top of a new administrative role at a school — speaks to what this project actually means to both of them. True Harvest has also helped the sisters reconnect after years of living apart. There is something fitting about that: a business built on the idea of preserving a family legacy has also had the practical effect of rebuilding the family connection that time and geography had frayed.
What This Means for Wisconsin Whiskey
The American craft distilling industry has been growing steadily for over a decade, but that growth has not been uniform across geography. States like Kentucky and Tennessee naturally dominate the conversation, and newer entrants from Texas, Colorado, and New York have staked out compelling market positions. Wisconsin has a legitimate agricultural argument to make — the state grows substantial amounts of corn, rye, barley, and wheat, all of which are central to bourbon and American whiskey production — but the narrative infrastructure around Wisconsin whiskey has lagged behind the raw agricultural capacity.
True Harvest Bourbon Company is a registered member of the Wisconsin Distillers Guild, joining a growing roster of craft producers working to build the kind of regional identity that turns a cluster of independent operations into a destination for spirits enthusiasts. The Popeks' story — family farm, immigrant roots, grain-to-glass aspirations, and the social experience of a well-run tasting room — is exactly the kind of anchor narrative that can move the needle.
The professors at the University of Louisville saw it. Former Brown-Forman executives, people who have spent their careers thinking about how bourbon markets develop and where untapped potential lies, looked at what the Popeks were building in central Wisconsin and said the region was ready for it. That assessment carries weight. The American whiskey boom of the past fifteen years has demonstrated repeatedly that geography is not destiny — what matters is quality, story, and the ability to build genuine community around a product.
The Brand Story That Cannot Be Manufactured
There is a meaningful distinction in the spirits industry between brands that have a story and brands whose story is the product. True Harvest falls decisively into the second category. Four generations ago, the Popek family came to America seeking a better way of life and a chance to have their own land, settled in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, and passed the farm down through the family — with each new generation always respecting and honoring those that came before.
That kind of provenance cannot be constructed in a branding meeting. It accretes over generations, through hard work, bad harvests, economic downturns, family loss, and the quiet insistence on staying. Pete Popek worked two jobs — the farm and the local forge — to keep that land in the family. His daughters are now working two careers each, plus a distillery, for the same reason. The throughline is unmistakable.
The name "True Harvest" itself rewards examination. A harvest is not just a collection of grain — it is the culmination of a season's labor, the payoff for soil preparation, planting decisions, weather management, and patience. Applied to bourbon, the name implies a product that has earned its existence through the whole process, not just the finishing. For a family whose connection to the land spans 150 years and four generations, the name is less a marketing choice than a statement of values.
The Road Ahead: From Sourced Barrels to Full Estate Production
The Popeks are realistic about where they are in the arc of what they're building. Becky and Jennifer are phasing the process. The current model — sourcing barrels from North Carolina, blending and bottling on site, running a vibrant tasting room — is a foundation, not a ceiling. The farm's crop rotation program is the prelude to something more ambitious: a grain-to-glass bourbon operation where every step of the production chain traces back to Waushara County soil.
Part of True Harvest's business plan is to work with local farmers to supply grain to make bourbon, a barrel-aged American whiskey made primarily from corn. The sisters are currently sourcing their product from the distillery in North Carolina and working with other distilleries, while purchasing barrels for bottling onsite and working with local farmers to buy grain. The dual-track approach — operate commercially now, build toward the ideal later — is smart business in an industry where cash flow and patience are equally essential.
When the farm's own grain finally makes it into a True Harvest barrel, aged under Wisconsin skies and eventually bottled on Main Street in Wild Rose, it will represent something genuinely rare in the bourbon world: a spirit that is the direct expression of a specific family's specific land, tended across generations by people who understood that agriculture and identity are not separate things. That bottle will carry more than corn and rye and barley in it. It will carry Pete Popek's two-job work ethic, the immigrant ambition of a Polish family that crossed an ocean for the chance to own land, and the determination of two sisters who decided that grief was not a reason to let go but a reason to hold tighter.
Why It Matters Beyond Waushara County
For bourbon drinkers who take the category seriously — who pay attention to mash bills, barrel entry proof, warehouse conditions, and the difference between sourced and estate-produced whiskey — True Harvest is a story worth following for reasons that extend well beyond regional novelty. The craft bourbon movement at its best is about accountability: knowing where the grain came from, who made the decisions, and what values shaped the product. The Popeks have answered those questions before they were even asked.
Founded by Jen and Becky, True Harvest emphasizes family legacy, devotion, and independence, and their tasting room offers exploration, education, and enjoyment of bourbon and cocktails in a welcoming setting. In a market crowded with brands built on manufactured mythology, there is something clarifying about a distillery whose mythology is simply its family history.
Wild Rose, Wisconsin may not be on the bourbon map yet. But if Becky and Jennifer Popek have anything to say about it — and they clearly do — it will be.
