You'd have to have a very skilled lab technician to harvest your own wild yeast strain, but it can most certainly be done. The first step is to put out "bait" in the manner that Mr. Noe described. You'd then need to take that fermentation to your lab, and isolate the yeast from the rest of the garbage. You could then prepare a slant, and keep it frozen until needed. The brewing yeast labs like White Labs would beef up their libraries by buying bottles of bottle conditioned British ales, look for a healthy yeast cell, and then put it on a slant.
Dry yeast has come a loooong way in the last decade. You can get dozens of ale strains that you couldn't get previously. Some very characterful strains are now available, so you aren't stuck using neutral, boring strains. Dry yeast also opens the door for the use of multiple strains, which can really yields some unique results. You can also use your main liquid strain, and either add the dry yeast in the same fermenter, or add dry yeast in one fermentation and distill it off, and blend it with distillate made from your main liquid strain. And then there's the lager and wine strains out there, which can (and have
) been used to create unusual spirits.
I share Mr. Cowdery's surprise at the lack of yeast handling knowledge among many (but certainly not all) of the new US microdistillers. There's almost zero discussion of yeast strains, which I find really odd.....and as Mr. Cowdery's post above alludes, if you control the yeast, you control everything. Many seem to view yeast and yeast handling as an afterthought, when it is really one of the very best tools for creating truly unique spirits.
And, of course, many of them have never used yeast before, and never will. Which is a shame, IMHO. It's half the fun.