If there’s anything bourbon lovers can unite around, surely it is a shared love of corn. While corn comes in hundreds of varieties with distinct shapes, colors, and flavors, American demand for certain varieties has led to staggering homogenization.

American corn accounts for 32% of the world’s corn production, making us the largest global producer of corn. And while in 1903 there were over 300 commercially available varieties of sweet corn alone in the U.S., by 1982 just 12 of those varieties were found in the National Seed Storage Library.

Yellow dent corn, and genetic variations thereof, is not only…