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SWISHER — Many years before terms like “trade war” dominated headlines, Cedar Ridge Distillery founder Jeff Quint saw a different sort of trade deficit that didn’t sit right with him.

“Iowa produces more corn than any state in the country. Yet before Cedar Ridge, we Iowans were importing 100 percent of the $350 million a year of spirits we were consuming,” he said. “We literally would sell Kentucky $4 worth of corn and buy $40 worth of spirits back.”

Since 2001, he had been complaining that his “401(k) had turned into a 101k.” By 2003, Quint and his wife, Laurie, decided to take on a “retirement project.”

The hearty French-American grape hybrids that do well in the Upper Midwest’s harsh clim

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