Work
Alchemy Pure
A founder story. Chris Regan and Jerry Peele had been neighbours in the hills above Millerton for fifteen years — one an artist who turned his eye to growing hand-crafted organic salad greens at Sky Farm, the other a former investor who rebuilt a run-down dairy into the respected Herondale livestock farm. Licensed to grow hemp since 2018, they went in together on a new idea: a cannabis farm run on the same natural-growing principles as their food. ephemeris was asked to tell that story — how two careful growers became one company — as a portrait of the people behind the plant.
Transcript — Alchemy Pure
Cannabis is a plant that is really suited to growing in the wild, and if it's growing in real soil and under the real sun. I've seen this plant just do amazing things. Cannabis itself, it's an incredibly responsive plant and it's so dramatic. You know, by the end of the season, these things you're helping grow are ten feet tall and they're covered in these delicious smelling flower.
I mean, it's amazing. I had a farm, Sky Farm for over two decades that grew salad greens for restaurants and local markets. But now I'm growing cannabis legal licensed cannabis in New York for New Yorkers. I think from the beginning I really enjoyed the day to day work. There's a lot of variety to it. Growing organically is something that, you know, makes sense to me.
You know, you'd be doing right by the soil and right by the land. I do think the Hudson Valley is an incredible, both in terms of soil and in terms of climate. It's it's an active place. You know, it's going to have some signature in the cannabis that's grown here. Sure of it. You know, we do have some greenhouse space, but most of our growers outdoor, all of it is grown in the soil and under real sun.
I'm not using any lights. I'm not using any chemical fertilizers or anything like that. It's just an organic grow. Outdoor plants are going to get more terps developed. They're going to get more of a smell. They're going to get higher levels of cannabinoids in some cases, and they're just going to have a lot more character particulars in the place, the particulars of our soil and just our attitude to let the earth do the work.
We're also pretty focused on trying to create premium flower by doing a really good cure. You know, the cure is very important to getting top shelf flower, but right now we're selling smoke able flower and we're selling cigarettes. We're selling pre-rolls, but we're hoping to be licensed to create some solvent lists, concentrates and some solvent less edibles. And solvent means we're just be producing those things without the use of butane or chemicals or things like that.
So again, you know, sort of on the cleaner, organic, pure side of things, we're hoping to again, just be making something really high quality and clean and, and great for the consumer.
Transcribed from the delivered film.