Among the many things Jamie (Pierce) Fahrner ’05 appreciates about her Butler education is being encouraged to take risks—even when they might feel uncomfortable.

That lesson is coming in handy these days as she and her husband, Dan, try to build their company, Hi & Mighty, a fully operational distillery that produces gin and canned cocktails. 

Just a few miles from Butler’s campus, inside the Southwest Pavilion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, they’re making adult beverages with names like Lemon Shakeup, Spiced Apple Sidekick, and Cool Blue. The last of those—a Butler-inspired cocktail that blends vodka with blueberry and lemon flavors —is now sold at Hinkle Fieldhouse and Clowes Memorial Hall events as well as at liquor stores across Indianapolis. 

“It feels remarkable to be selling Cool Blue at Butler,” Fahrner says. “I have distinct memories of waiting for my brother after his football games, cheering on the Bulldogs during my college career, and taking my kiddos to games at Hinkle and shows at Clowes. It’s such a special place and I feel so proud to be sharing our locally made cocktails in places so historic and celebratory. It’s a partnership that is rooted in so much joy and nostalgia for me.” 

Fahrner’s connection to Butler goes back years before she was a student. She grew up in Crown Point, Indiana, and traveled to Butler frequently with her parents to watch her older brother Jesse play football for the Bulldogs. 

“I loved the campus,” she says. “I thought it was so beautiful. It felt far enough away from home that I could go and do my thing but also still go home on weekends if I wanted to.” 

At her Commencement, Fahrner—then a high school junior—was so moved by the faculty speaker, former College of Education (COE) Dean Ena Shelley, that she wrote the Dean a letter of appreciation. 

“That was such a surprise that she was actually listening to my speech,” Shelley says with a smile. “When she enrolled at Butler she reminded me of the letter. Who knew that one day I would be fortunate enough to be her Dean and that she would be a graduate of our beloved COE.”

Fahrner initially planned to major in Public Relations, but then she had a pivotal meeting with Education Professor Arthur Hochman. 

“I sat with him in his office and I was like, ‘I think I want to be a teacher.’ And he’s like, ‘I think you want to be a teacher’ in the way that he talks.” 

She became an Education major. After graduation, she taught second grade for three years at a charter school in the Fountain Square neighborhood, then became an outreach coordinator, a kind of community liaison connecting kids and families to local resources. 

And then…she and Dan had four children in four years: Calvin, Royal, and twins Art and Gus. For the next 10 years, she was a stay-at-home mom. 

In 2019, during an anniversary trip to Maine, she and Dan were trying to figure out how they could work together. 

“After a lot of exploration,” she says, “we landed on a distillery that really focuses on not just the big celebrations—the graduations, the jobs, the whatever—but the little celebrations in life.” 

They didn’t know how to open and operate a distillery, but their friend Nick Traeger had some of the requisite knowledge. He joined as a partner, and the three of them went to a place in Louisville called Moonshine University to learn what they needed to know. They named the business Hi & Mighty, with “hi” signifying the friendliness of the brand and “mighty” for the deliciousness of the drink, and in 2022 released their first products. 

Dan handles marketing and partnerships, Traeger does the production, and Jamie does a little of everything—working the canning line, running events and tastings, securing permits, handling regulations, and government reporting. So far, they’ve distributed about 16,000 cases of their products, which are now distributed in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

It’s a far cry from teaching elementary school, but Fahrner said what she learned in the College of Education remains applicable.

“If you walk into a classroom and you’ve got 24 kids, they all have different needs, right?” she said. “You have to be able to respond on a dime to anything. And that is so similar to what it’s like owning a startup business, because you think that things are going to go a certain way and then challenges are thrown your way. And so, responding with kindness and generosity and with intention, using those soft skills to grow a business, feels really transferrable.”