Cheers to a Vodka from Whey and a Bone Gin

Raise a glass to these creative distillers tackling food waste.

- VICTORIA BURROWS

It may seem an unlikely source of inspiration for an English dairy farmer, but it was an ancient Mongolian tradition that compelled Jason Barber to make vodka from the milk of his 240 cows.

While searching for a way to use up the whey left over after making cheese, he discovered that Mongolians make distilled drinks using the milk of herd animals such as horses, yaks, donkeys and reindeer, and he had a lightbulb moment. After five years of experimentation, he launched Black Cow Vodka with artist Paul Archard, his neighbour and friend, in 2012.

A by-product of industrial agriculture, whey is usually fed to pigs, and used by food processing companies in products such as powdered milk and protein powder. Although it does not have a high monetary value, and there is usually an excess of it, it must be disposed of carefully since, due to its high sugar content, it can pollute the groundwater and kill aquatic life.

“It costs almost as much to dispose of as it does to use it. But it’s something that demands to be cleared up. So we do what we can to tidy it up,” says Archard. “We love the alchemy of turning something that is the problem child of the industry into a luxury product.” 

Cow’s whey contains plenty of natural sugars, which are essential for fermentation. It is combined with yeast to ferment into a frothy beer that is then triple distilled and filtered.