{"id":13671,"date":"2021-09-28T18:15:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T18:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hamburgjournal.com\/?p=13671"},"modified":"2021-09-28T18:15:02","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T18:15:02","slug":"lauras-lean-beef-has-a-healthy-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hamburgjournal.com\/lauras-lean-beef-has-a-healthy-sequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura\u2019s Lean Beef has a healthy sequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Comeback<\/h1>\n

Laura\u2019s Lean Beef has a healthy sequel<\/h3>\n

Story and photos by KEVIN NANCE\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo by Kevin Nance\/ HJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T<\/span>he story of Laura Freeman\u2019s second act begins with a horse. On May 19, 2005, the eponymous founder of Laura\u2019s Lean Beef was out for a ride on her 1500-acre estate, Mt. Folly Farm, when her horse spun her off. Freeman, then a competitive event rider who had recently returned from a meet, landed hard and suffered a traumatic brain injury. She was air-lifted to the University of Kentucky Hospital and later spent months at Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital relearning how to swallow, walk, talk, type and perform other basic tasks.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

F<\/span>reeman knew she couldn\u2019t run an operation as large and complex as Laura\u2019s Lean Beef anymore \u2014 in part because, aside from the rehab challenges, she was in near constant pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was just no way<\/i>,<\/i>\u201d she said in a recent interview at the farm. \u201cWhen I would go into the office to try to sell the company, I\u2019d shut the door and lay down on the floor, because the pain was so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that closed door, as is the way of things, opened another. The solution to her pain turned out to be CBD oil extracted from hemp. \u201cThe first time I tried it, it didn\u2019t work,\u201d recalls Freeman, now 64. \u201cBut after I got the right type and the right dosage, boom!<\/i> The full-body pain went away in a week<\/i>. CBD helped my recovery tremendously. And I said, \u2018Good lord, we want to grow this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

It was a eureka moment that \u2014 after a protracted recovery, during which Freeman sold Laura\u2019s Lean Beef, moved to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, and pondered retirement \u2014 finally set into motion another entrepreneurial chain of events that continues to this day.<\/p>\n

Freeman knew she could no longer run an operation as large and complex as Laura\u2019s Lean Beef \u2014 in part because, aside from the physical rehabilitation challenges, she was in near constant pain.\u00a0 \u201cThere was just no way<\/i>,<\/i>\u201d she said in a recent interview at the farm. \u201cWhen I would go into the office, I\u2019d shut the door and lay down on the floor, because the pain was so bad.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Returning to Mt. Folly Farm, which has been in Freeman\u2019s family for several generations, she and her daughter, Alice Melendez, planted their first hemp crop in 2014, just after it became legal in Kentucky. Now the farm\u2019s umbrella corporation, Mt. Folly Enterprises, markets an increasingly popular line of USDA certified products, sold primarily through Freeman\u2019s e-commerce website.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo by Kevin Nance\/ HJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B<\/span>ut CBD oil, while the farm\u2019s major product, is far from its only one. As part of what Freeman now merrily calls Mt. Folly\u2019s \u201chemp and booze economy,\u201d it started Wildcat Willy\u2019s Distillery, a small craft whiskey operation in downtown Winchester, in 2016. Wildcat Willy\u2019s now sells its own single-barrel, four-grain bourbon, called 1833, made from corn and rye grown on the farm and aged for four years in an old burley tobacco barn. (The farm also air-cures its hemp in repurposed tobacco barns.) In addition, the distillery makes and sells apple and bramble-berry brandies as well as heirloom corn and sweet potato moonshine straight from the still, although 1833 currently has a growing following in Kentucky and the region.<\/p>\n

The distillery, which currently makes less than 50,000 gallons of spirits a year, is being kept deliberately small at this point. \u201cWhen we say craft bourbon, we mean real<\/i> craft bourbon,\u201d Freeman says with a smile. But 1833\u2019s very scarcity \u2014 it\u2019s sold exclusively at the distillery and on its website \u2014 is part of its appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was down at the distillery this morning about 9:30, and even though they don\u2019t open till 11, there was a father and son from Cincinnati that beat on the door until I came to it,\u201d says Ben Pasley, Mt. Folly\u2019s chief operating officer and manager of the farm\u2019s 30-person, mostly thirtysomething workforce.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo by Kevin Nance\/ HJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

W<\/span>ildcat Willy\u2019s, located in nearby downtown Winchester, quickly expanded to include a farm-to-table restaurant serving organic beef and chicken raised at the farm using the same no-antibiotics, no-growth-hormone mantra that governed Laura\u2019s Lean Beef. That farm-to-table strategy employs many sustainable farming practices such as regenerative crop rotation, goats used for weed control in lieu of herbicides, and cattle grazed in a rotating sequence of farm locations to allow for a gradual buildup of organic matter and complex root structures in the soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an environmentalist from way back,\u201d Freeman says. Thoughts of retirement are long banished. \u201cI\u2019m going to be the soils and the cattle and the tree person at the farm,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to do that forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

This article also appears on page <\/i>8<\/i> of the <\/i>October 2021 <\/i>print edition of Hamburg Journal.<\/i><\/p>\n

For more Lexington, KY, Hamburg area news, <\/i>subscribe<\/i><\/a> to the Hamburg Journal digital newsletter.<\/i><\/p>\n

To<\/i> advertise<\/i><\/a> in Hamburg Journal, call 859.268.0945<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of Laura Freeman\u2019s second act begins with a horse. On May 19, 2005, the eponymous founder of Laura\u2019s Lean Beef was out for a ride on her 1500-acre estate, Mt. Folly Farm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":13675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15,660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-features","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n