>> Support for "Hoosier Spirits, Distilling in Indiana" provided in part by Hotel Tango, a veteran-owned and operated distillery, offering crafted spirits, such as straight bourbon whiskey, and Shmallow, toasted marshmallow bourbon, located in Indianapolis.

More at hoteltangodistillery.com.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!

♪ >> NARRATOR: Indiana is in the middle of a craft distilling boom.

Demand for whiskey is at an all-time high.

And artisan distillers across the state are creating a host of sought after spirits.

Believe it or not, this was also true a couple of hundred years ago.

Back in the early 19th century, Hoosiers were already creating world-class whiskeys and spirits.

>> Even the French were drinking our apple brandy because it was considered of such a high quality.

>> We have the white oak trees.

We have the fruit for brandies.

We have the grain for whiskey.

It's just absolutely perfect.

>> NARRATOR: And it wasn't just a handful of distillers in the woods.

>> Between 1858 and 1914, just in one little six county region which we call the Black Forest Region, which is Washington, Orange, Lawrence, Crawford, Harrison and Perry County, you have 155 legal operating distilleries in this one little region of southern Indiana.

>> NARRATOR: And there was a time when Hoosier distillers were held in just as high esteem as our bourbon-making neighbors to the south.

>> And certainly in the 1800s, you know, they had amazing rye distillers.

They had people making bourbon there, and they were -- they were right there and, like, you know, some of the top ten states making whiskey.

You know, there's this thought that Indiana could have been what Kentucky is in some ways.

>> NARRATOR: So with all the right ingredients, why isn't Indiana considered a premier whiskey state?

The answer is complicated.

It's a story of culture, laws, industry and deep-seated Hoosier values.

>> The background of Indiana is Evangelical, anti-alcohol background.

>> A lot of Prohibition was started because of people in Indiana.

And during Prohibition, Indiana was what they call a bone dry state.

>> In a lot of ways, Indiana is very reflective of the Midwest and areas where there are large concentrations of Evangelical Protestants throughout most of the 20th century.

>> Pre-Prohibition, things are really going well in Indiana; but post-Prohibition, some legislative changes and things like that have kind of held Indiana back as being one of the top producers in the world of whiskey.

>> NARRATOR: The people's will and politics put Indiana's distilling industry on ice for nearly 100 years, but that's all changed.

In 2013, the state legalized craft distilling and a new industry is on the rise.

>> Indiana was not the state that any of us had thought this would be a leading example of the craft distilling movement.

And -- and, you know, lo and behold, they opened some doors that other states, you know, shut.

>> NARRATOR: Hoosier distillers, like their predecessors some two centuries ago, are taking advantage of the opportunity, using the bounty of this state to create award-winning spirits.

>> I think we have great opportunity.

We have great corn.

We have great malted barley that's being produced in this state.

>> I'm actually sold out to 2026.

I don't have a barrel available.

>> Our goal was always just to be a little better than we were last year, and that's -- that's where we find ourselves.

>> Our craft spirits, I think, stand up to any craft spirits in Kentucky or Tennessee, for sure.

>> The distillery is in its infancy here in Indiana, and so we know that the future is bright.

>> NARRATOR: From the shores of Lake Michigan to the banks of the Ohio River, Indiana distillers are drawing on our deep roots to create a new legacy of Hoosier excellence.

So sit back, get comfortable, and enjoy "Hoosier Spirits."

♪ >> First things first, what is whiskey?

This one is actually pretty easy.

It's just a blanket term for spirit distilled from grains and aged in wooden barrels.

Rye is whiskey.

Bourbon is whiskey.

Scotch is whiskey.

And while they're all whiskeys, they each have their own rules.

Bourbon, for example, has to be made mostly of corn.

It has to be aged in a new charred white oak barrel.

It must be distilled in the United States, but not all bourbon has to be from Kentucky, contrary to popular belief.

There's some other rules, but those are the biggies.

Rye, just like the name suggests, has to be made mostly from rye, and aged in wooden barrels.

Just like bourbon, there's some other boxes a whiskey must check in order to be a rye.

Brandy starts with a fruit.

You can use just about any fruit.

Grapes are common, apples, peaches, apricots, and cherries, along with a lot of other fruits that can be fermented into a cider or wine.

From there, it's distilled just like a whiskey.

Brandy is just a little bit sweeter and lighter, with more notes of fruit and some say a more nuanced taste.

♪ >> NARRATOR: Folks were distilling brandy and other spirits in Indiana way before it was a state, even before the term "Hoosier" came about.

More or less, as soon as Europeans got to North America, they set up their stills and started making rum and other spirits.

>> The other spirit that was very common was brandy on the East Coast.

Because of Spanish trade with Native Americans, there were already peach groves all up and down the East Coast, and potentially even some apple groves probably.

And that was also how you claimed land for a long time.

If you wanted to claim a new piece of land on the frontier, you had to plant an apple tree to show that you had some commitment to that piece of property over a number of years.

>> NARRATOR: And many of those fruit trees across the United States and here in Indiana were planted to create spirits.

Most commonly brandy!

>> Brandy going way back to the 1700s and 1800s was the majority of what spirits were drank in the United States.

And southern Indiana was the producer of those spirits, all the way up and down the river from Cincinnati to Evansville.

Fruit trees and apples and grapes and everything was being produced here and brandy was being made here.

>> NARRATOR: By the early 19th century, we were making and drinking a lot of alcohol.

In the 1830s, Americans were putting away over 7 gallons of alcohol per drinking age person a year.

More than triple what an average American drinks today.

With all that demand, the distilling business was its own kind of gold rush, and Indiana was no exception.

>> We really don't have an understanding of what drinking was like pre-Prohibition because we live in a post-Prohibition society and reality.

>> It was known from the earliest days from the 1790s easily, that Indiana would be a distilling state, a distilling frontier.

To the extent that off the banks of the Ohio River in Madison, Indiana, there was actually a flat boat that was moored for a period of about 30 years, and that float boat operated as a store.

But the only thing they sold was distilling equipment to people coming into southern Indiana.

By 1812, Washington County, Indiana, had 64 mills and every one of those mills would have had a distillery.

>> Water from this particular cave, which starts the stream here, immediately as it came out of the cave, fed two different mills and distillers.

So more than likely if you were standing here in 1825, you would have seen the mill, you would have seen the distillery, you would have seen the second mill and the second distillery around the corner up here.

There were nine commercial distilleries in this valley at one point in time.

We are standing on the footprint of the Old Clifty millhouse that was built between 1812 and 1820.

This was connected to the Old Clifty Distillery, one of the longest running, consecutively running distilleries here in southern Indiana.

Kind of the cream of the crop of apple brandy at that time.

>> NARRATOR: And Bishop says, it's pretty safe to say that where there was a mill, there was a still.

>> The miller didn't really need the corn.

He's got all of his own corn.

He's growing his own corn.

The main product of the mills was really the distilled spirits.

>> NARRATOR: And this was true for one of Indiana's best preserved historic sites.

The mill at Spring Mill State Park was all about grinding corn for distilling.

>> The distillery was what made money here in the village.

I mean, the mill was here.

It brought in the corn they needed, and they would take 9 to 16% of the corn as their fee for grinding, and then they would take it to the distillery and make money.

You can make a lot more money off whiskey than you can cornmeal.

>> NARRATOR: Not only did alcohol provide a welcome distraction from the rough life of a pioneer.

It was often the safest thing a body could drink.

>> Everybody knows that water is maybe the best thing for you to drink, and at the same time, there is concern that you can get sick from drinking water.

The best example of why Hoosiers and others of that pioneering generation sort of are leary of milk comes from Abraham Lincoln.

His mother dies from milk sickness from a cow eating a weed that then passes on and is poisonous to those who drink the milk.

The saving grace in all that is a fermented drink.

Anything that has alcohol in it is proven to be safe, has a longer shelf life.

And so you are always seeing pioneers in that generation balancing out what is easily available, water, milk, versus what is they know to be safe.

Consumption becomes a problem very early on.

Alcohol in the late 18th, early 19th centuries, throughout the United States, but that would include Indiana during its formative period, is sky high.

>> NARRATOR: All those thirsty people need to get their alcohol from somewhere, and there were hundreds of large and small distillers in Indiana happy to oblige.

One enterprising distiller, G.B.

Bingham, made a small fortune running stills, and he even invented a liquor holding tank meant to prevent tax fraud.

It was more than a little ironic that just three years later, he was implicated in the Whiskey Ring, an organized tax dodge that reached the very top of the United States government.

>> So Bingham gets caught up in this -- in this Whiskey Ring, and he ends up bringing a lot of people down with him, but like 110 distillers end up getting caught in this Whiskey Ring in the 1870s, and they were basically just defrauding the government of paying taxes.

Whiskey distillers have never liked paying taxes.

They get caught bribing people all the way up to Orville Babcock, who was President Grant's right-hand man.

And Bingham was right there in the center of it.

Historically, anybody who invents technology to improve whiskey, which he was creating these special tanks to hold liquor, you know, those people tend to get known in whiskey history; whereas, he is kind of like a pariah.

And so I've always wondered, like, what would have happened if things went different in the Whiskey Ring.

Would Indiana be considered at the level that Kentucky is today?

>> NARRATOR: Bingham's prominent role in the Whiskey Ring, and the blow it dealt to distilling in the state, may well have been the first brick pulled from the wall of Indiana's distilling reputation.

>> The biggest leader of the non-Kentucky states, other than Tennessee, would be Indiana.

If a couple things go in different directions in the 1800s, you can make a case that Indiana is a rival to Kentucky in all of whiskey.

>> NARRATOR: It wasn't just Hoosiers that got caught up in the aftermath of the Whiskey Ring.

The entire Midwestern distilling industry was reshaped by the scandal.

>> What happened in these states or these areas that were part of the Whiskey Ring, they end up becoming brewing towns.

They lost all of this distilling talent.

So we're talking about Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Indiana is a part of that as well.

>> NARRATOR: But the Whiskey Ring tax dodgers weren't the only bad actors running stills.

Tainted alcohol became such a problem that in 1897, the Bottled in Bond Act was passed to safeguard consumers.

>> Bottled in Bond was implemented because there were a lot of bad players in the game.

And they would do things such as add, you know, plum juice or prune juice to a whiskey or a brandy or whatever.

There are stories out there about tobacco spit, all of these things, right, to change the color, the flavor, et cetera.

>> NARRATOR: Tobacco spit or not, Americans were still hitting the bottle hard!

But a movement was growing to try to rein it all in.

♪ >> The Temperance Movement -- I guess would be fairer to say, rather than anti-drinking -- grows up almost immediately alongside that sort of westward expansion that Indiana is a part of, but also the industrialization that's starting to happen in the first half of the 19th century back East.

>> NARRATOR: The players on the 19th century chess board were the dries, the wets, and the so-called damps.

>> So dries are those who are against alcohol, and, in fact, that will become a synonymous term with Prohibitionists.

Wets, conversely, are those who want alcohol flowing.

They want to drink.

Then there's one other group, the damps.

They are not opposed to all alcohol, but they also are willing to discuss the fact that alcohol brings with it some problems and challenges for individuals and maybe society writ large.

>> NARRATOR: The dries are good for Temperance, largely on religious and moral grounds; but they also appeal to good old Hoosier practicality.

>> Reformers who are advocating for Temperance begin to believe that alcohol is, one, a substance that deprives you of your rational thought.

The other thing is that we see the rise of alcohol as an industry.

We start to see companies get involved with that.

And so you are going to see reformers begin to push back along the lines of this is a big business out to make profit at the expense of the individual, depriving them of their wits and their reason.

>> NARRATOR: It was a good argument that appealed to the rugged, home-spun individualisms that Hoosiers saw in themselves.

Big businesses and fat cats in suits are out to take your hard-earned pay, which is still a good talking point almost 200 years later.

One of the predatory practices these reformers pointed to was the free lunch.

>> This notion that you can come into an establishment and get a free pork sandwich, and what Hoosier doesn't like a good tenderloin?

That's all free, but the alcohol, what they have for you to drink, you've got to buy.

Any money that goes into the saloon is money that that worker is not going to have to support either themselves or their family.

And the family is also part of the reforming ethos of the Temperance Prohibition Movement, that women bear the brunt of domestic violence because their husbands are coming home drunk.

>> NARRATOR: It got bad enough for Indiana to pass a statewide prohibition in 1855.

The state Supreme Court struck it down just three years later, but Temperance leaders were steadfast.

Indiana, they argued, needed an intervention.

>> At the end of a long week, people would take their paychecks to the tavern; and oftentimes, then would leave the tavern that night or the next day with little or nothing in their pockets.

There was gambling.

There was prostitution.

There was excess consumption.

And the constant drive of the supplier tier and the retail tier to sell alcohol at any cost was causing tremendous problems in society.

That was one of the main reasons that Prohibition came about, because there was so little regulation of the product.

>> NARRATOR: Reverend Edward Shumaker was a Methodist minister who rose through the ranks of the Anti-Saloon League, a Temperance organization that was growing across the nation and state.

Shumaker quickly became one of the most influential mouthpieces for the dry cause in Indiana, as he rallied churches in the state to amplify the Temperance message.

>> Edward S. Shumaker, who is the state superintendent of the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, a branch of a much larger national organization that is sometimes known as the first Political Action Committee in American history.

It is an organization that is designed to wield political pressure in letting people know how their representatives, their mayors, their governors vote or intend to vote and steering them towards candidates that will advance a dry agenda.

They are also heavily involved with the Evangelical Protestant churches.

This is where they draw their strength.

This is where they have their initial rallying points, a means to raise money, support, and to get their message out.

>> NARRATOR: Shumaker and the Indiana dries campaigned to wipe the scourge of drink from the American landscape.

>> He's really balancing all of these different groups and organizations while also being a Political Action Committee, where he is talking to politicians.

He is helping getting out the vote, and his power is growing as a result, to the point where it is said eventually that Shumaker is able to orchestrate almost a perfect political campaign to make Indiana go dry.

>> NARRATOR: Yet again, Indiana was one of the states leading the way in demonstrating the viability of a national prohibition.

>> The state goes dry before national prohibition is enacted.

It goes dry before the entry into World War I, which is often tagged as this moment when dry sentiment goes national for real.

Indiana goes dry earlier, and in that sort of weird in-between moment, between when Indiana goes dry and the country goes dry, Shumaker's tactics in Indiana are something that are studied by other state leagues to say, well, this is how we can go about getting statewide prohibition passed as well.

>> NARRATOR: It's not always the case that Indiana finds itself at the forefront of a national movement, but for Prohibition, it became a blueprint for a host of other states.

Indiana went dry on April 2nd, 1918, and the rest of the nation followed.

Congress ratified the 18th Amendment less than a year later in January of 1919.

♪ >> The dries believe they are quite successful, not just in Indiana, but nationwide.

After all, they get the 18th Amendment passed.

The best estimate is that about 75, 80% of alcohol consumption ends.

So it's actually very few people who are drinking during Prohibition.

So on that hand it works, but it's also this sort of double-edged sword for dries because they fully expect that because they have a constitutional amendment, that's it.

>> NARRATOR: So while the dries had to contend with complacency among the faithful, and a desire to drink among the general population, their reputation had become loosely associated with the nefarious organization with rough tactics and a worse reputation.

>> In Shumaker's case in Indiana, he's faced with the rise of another organization that sort of adopts Prohibition as one of its tenets, and that is, of course, the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan in Indiana under D.C. Stephenson is going to focus on the three Ps, Prohibition, Patriotism and Protestantism.

They are going to be the enforcement arm.

They are going to argue continually that the state, and to a degree, the federal government are not enforcing prohibition, and that means somebody else must step into that gap.

>> NARRATOR: Indiana distillers struggled to overcome a powerful one-two punch of Protestant Prohibitionists like Shumaker and the ugly tactics of the Ku Klux Klan.

>> Prohibition really did destroy the Indiana distilling industry, even the brands that it didn't kill off, it eventually brought them to their knees.

Here in southern Indiana in particular, you have all of these farmer distillers raising the apples for brandy.

Well, again, these apples aren't good to eat out of hand.

If all of your farmland is tied up in apples that you can't eat, you can't do anything with, what do you do?

You cut down your trees and you plant a commodity crop.

And so what you see is this consolidation of alcohol resources in the United States.

The government goes and basically bids out, hey, who wants a quote/unquote concentration warehouse, a place where we can send everyone's barrels of whiskey, brandy, whatever, to be watched during Prohibition and be bottled medicinally during that time period.

Well, by the time Prohibition is over, the barrels are all empty and whether or not that is from evaporation or them being siphoned off, I will let you decide.

>> NARRATOR: Some enterprising scofflaws made fortunes pulling liquor from the storehouses in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, just across the river from Cincinnati.

One such bootlegger still lives large in the American imagination, whether most folks know it or not.

>> George Remus was a pharmacist, turned attorney, turned bootlegger.

So he moved from Chicago to Cincinnati.

You know, Cincinnati is just 20 miles from this distillery.

And he moved to Cincinnati because he was within just a 50-mile radius of so many of the shuttered whiskey warehouses.

You know, we've seen the picture where the revenuers took an ax to the barrels and it was all going down the drain.

Well, those were publicity shots.

George Remus worked on ways to get permits to pull the whiskey out of the warehouses and use it for medicinal purposes.

One of the warehouses that he purchased was right here in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

George Remus at one point was controlling 35% of all of the bootlegged alcohol in this country during Prohibition, and he was making a lot of money.

He bought a big mansion in -- in Cincinnati, started throwing these big parties that were covered in all the newspapers.

The lore about George Remus is that he was an acquaintance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and became the inspiration for Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby."

>> NARRATOR: Prohibition lasted for over a decade.

It gave us bootleggers like Remus, the rise of organized crime, and a notable decline in the number of Americans drinking, which meant even after the repeal of Prohibition, many of the legally operating distilleries in Indiana were left out in the cold.

>> Well, everything has been setting for over a decade, unused.

Equipment is falling apart.

A whole generation of distillers have fallen off, which means that they never got a chance to pass on the traditions and the old ways of productions.

>> NARRATOR: Even though it would be legal to distill spirits after 1933, in Indiana, it wasn't so easy to fire the stills back up and start making alcohol again.

>> The big guys that do make it through Prohibition really only last up until the '50s or the '60s because they are so hampered by what happened with Prohibition, it just destroyed them.

And so you really end up with only one major distillery that made it through, which was the old Seagram's plant.

And I have always credited them, and I will always credit them with this, they were the ones that kept the lights on for Indiana.

>> NARRATOR: Seagram's, a large distiller and blender from Canada, wasn't interested in Indiana whiskey.

They were just interested in making their whiskey in Indiana.

>> I think they had the wrong figureheads in the state to kind of push the whiskey agenda.

You don't hear about Seagram's master distillers.

You hear about their brands like Crown Royal, Seagram's 7 Crown; whereas, in these other states, whether it was Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, the people who were at the helm, they cared about the heritage.

That is really, in a nutshell to me, what really hurt the Indiana whiskey industry.

>> NARRATOR: And it was more than just the decline of pride in Hoosier spirits and the loss of all of that institutional knowledge that prevented Indiana from returning to its previous glory.

Laws in the state made it tough for small- and medium-sized distilleries to get a foothold in the market.

>> The legislature in Indiana began to set up what's now known as the three-tiered system.

And that is the most important thing that came out of Prohibition, was that we put a middle tier, created out of thin air, a middle tier of wholesalers between the manufacturer of the product and the retailer.

The wholesale tier is really where they do their regulation, because suppliers are located literally around the world, and retailers are by the thousands in each state.

It's the wholesale tier that's the smallest number and the easiest to regulate.

So the regulators used the wholesalers as part of that regulatory process.

>> NARRATOR: Small- and medium-sized distillers couldn't crank out enough spirits to get the attention of the wholesalers, leaving them vulnerable to the larger players in the industry.

>> Eventually, the consolidation started at the state level and continued to the national level until a handful of players controlled the production and the sale of distilled spirits around the world.

>> Honestly, it's not because of lack of raw materials, because it is all here.

It's just -- it was the legislature.

They were just very conservative when it came to hard spirits, and so it's -- it's held the industry back.

>> NARRATOR: While other states made tweaks and changes to their laws that may have helped smaller distillers, Indiana did not.

And it wasn't just overzealous lawmakers that kept Indiana's liquor business on ice.

Legislators represented the values of many Hoosiers.

>> In a lot of ways, Indiana is very reflective of the Midwest and areas where there are large concentrations of Evangelical Protestants throughout most of the 20th century.

>> The background of Indiana is Evangelical Protestant background, anti-alcohol background.

That's why our laws basically reflect Indiana.

Now, you can go to other states that don't have the same background that we have, and their laws could be quite different.

>> NARRATOR: Times changed and Indiana caught up eventually.

Over the second half of the 20th century, advocates pushed for artisan wineries and breweries, where they could offer consumers samples of the products on site, and those home-grown industries flourished as a result.

But it was gonna take a lot more to get Hoosier lawmakers to bring distilling back home.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Just like in the 19th century, distilled spirits have a rougher reputation than wine and beer.

So it's no surprise it took more time and effort to make artisan distilling a reality in Indiana.

>> Basically, Indiana started with farm wineries in the '70s.

Dr. Oliver from IU law school wrote the laws, basically, that regulated the wine industry, and that is what we went by for many, many years.

Then the craft brewers came along in the '90s.

They were people who were interested in starting a distillery, and approached the legislature and bills were filed and sometimes not heard; other times heard, not given a vote.

>> NARRATOR: Ted Huber of Huber Winery knew it would be slow going with Indiana lawmakers.

In the late '90s, he got his foot in the door by focusing on distilling wine down to brandy instead of trying to get a reluctant Statehouse to sign off on whiskey production.

He drew on a strong family legacy to make his case.

>> My grandmother always pushed me, and said hey, you need to really think about getting the brandy back, you know.

We had as much history, if not more history in making brandy than we did wine here on this farm, with all the orchards and all the vineyards going back to the 1800s.

>> NARRATOR: Craft breweries were popping up like wildflowers across the state, and wineries like Oliver and Huber were drawing big crowds.

>> Now, we were a winery.

There's all kind of wineries back in the '90s and early 2000s in the state of Indiana.

And basically said hey, all we're going to do is take wine and distill it and turn it into brandy.

We want the same privileges in our distillery as we did our winery.

Guests would be able to come, be able to experience, be able to do tours, educate people what brandy was, and let 'em taste and hopefully buy a bottle to take home with them.

So in 2001, we finally got that legislation passed for us to be able to open up that first distillery.

>> Ted Huber approached me about it not long after I was first elected.

Ted and his late father started going to the Statehouse back in the 1970s, working on winery legislation.

By the time Ted and I started talking about the possibility of passing artisan distilling legislation, he had been going to the Statehouse for about 40 years, setting the stage for other policy changes to come, including artisan distilling.

>> NARRATOR: But Huber and a small group of other would-be distillers were just getting started.

They hoped to use the success of Huber's new brandy distilling operation, Starlight Distillery, as a case study for expanding the craft in the state.

>> So we started a multiyear process at that point.

>> NARRATOR: Some lawmakers were dubious about firing the stills back up.

A still on every hill they warned.

Clere and Huber put together a tour and a family-style dinner at Huber Winery to help convince lawmakers.

Most notably, House Public Policy Committee Chair Bill Davis said, The sky wouldn't fall if we distilled spirits in the state again.

>> It was really a family affair, and I think it helped drive home the point that what we were trying to do was consistent with family business and family farms and agriculture.

And I think that was the moment when Representative Davis decided that it was time to -- to move this.

After that, we were no longer talking about a still on every hill.

>> NARRATOR: Clere and a small band of aspiring distillers worked to bring craft distilling back to the state again.

>> We kind of bonded together, kind of put all of our resources together, and we went back the following year.

That bill ended up passing.

There were a lot of restrictions on it at the time, but the initial kernel of changing the craft distilling laws in Indiana took place in 2013.

We opened in August of 2014.

And we opened as the first craft distillery in Indiana.

>> NARRATOR: And with the passing of that law, Indiana kicked off a distilling boom!

>> As time has gone on and just the -- you know, everything you have to do to get a distillery up and running, it doesn't seem to be as big of a burden as it once was, and, you know, we now have a lot of distilleries in Indiana.

So it's been great.

>> From the beginning, nine years ago when I was the first one, I believe there's like maybe 50 to 60 craft distilleries now in Indiana.

>> NARRATOR: The number of distilleries in the state continues to grow, and the laws in Indiana are growing alongside of it.

In 2018, the state legalized the sale of carry-out alcohol on Sundays.

And in 2024, the state ended a ban on happy hours.

♪ >> Pouring yourself a glass of whiskey is easy, but making it, well, that's another thing all together.

>> So whether you are making it in a big factory or you are making it in the woods, it's the same process.

And so whiskey is spirits distilled from grain.

You can't put anything else in it besides grain, water and yeast.

>> The materials are super important, right?

So you don't put trash in a still, you don't get trash out of the still.

So we want to buy everything, again, as hyper locally as what we can.

>> So when we talk about a mash bill, it's the grains in the bourbon or the whiskey.

A bourbon has to be at least 51% corn.

It's usually a little higher than that, and then the other grains are left to the distiller.

>> Distillers pick a mixture of corn, rye, wheat, and barley to get the specific flavors they're after.

>> So you bring in the grains.

You are going to grind the grain, and then you are going to go through the process of fermentation, where we are converting the starch that's in all of those grains, converting it to sugar and then to alcohol.

And in that fermentation process is where you first make the alcohol.

>> So it takes about four days for our fermentation process.

Some places take seven to ten days.

>> They call it distiller's beer.

And while it's pretty similar to what you might find in a six pack, it's not gonna taste that great.

What it is, though, is exactly what you want when you are ready to make some whiskey.

>> And then we take that -- that mash and that fermented mash, and we put it in our still, and we are going to distill it twice.

A lot of whiskey is just distilled twice.

So the first step is actually just stripping the alcohol out of the mash.

And the still is the piece of equipment that does that.

Alcohol will boil off -- has a lower boiling point than water.

So we will put all the grains and all the water in the still, but the only thing that is going to distill off is the alcohol.

>> And then we've got alcohol.

For bourbon, rye whiskey, we're going to keep that at about 140 proofs.

>> This clear spirit called white dog is ready to be barreled.

>> By law, all bourbon, rye whiskey, malt whiskey, has to be put in a barrel at less than 125 proof.

That was standardized after Prohibition.

>> Most whiskey in America is bottled at 80 proof.

Most of 80 proof whiskeys had been diluted after coming out of the barrel.

For a whiskey to be considered a bourbon, it has to be bottled at a minimum of 80 proof.

Big whiskey drinkers often prefer cask or barrel proof.

That's the proof of liquid when it comes out of the barrel, and it's often around 110 to 125 proof.

>> Most of the whiskey that we're making right now is white dog that goes into barrels to make our bourbon and our rye.

We're going to put it in our white oak charred barrels.

We specify the size and the char level that we want, and everyone chooses a different char level, different years that they are going to put it in the barrel.

>> Once it's barreled, the whiskey is stored to age and develop the rich amber color we are all so familiar with.

This process also gives the whiskey the rich flavor that makes it so damn delicious.

>> This is another reason why bourbon and whiskey is made in this part of the world, you know, southern Indiana, Kentucky.

It's because we have seasons.

>> Every single day, it's working in and out of that wood, extracting all the color, the flavor, and the aroma comes from that barrel.

So predominantly corn, the barrel, those are the two most important parts of what bourbon is.

>> The longer it sits, the stronger the flavor grows, and every distiller has their own way of doing it, but none of that could happen without those bitter winters and sultry summers here in Indiana.

♪ >> NARRATOR: Now, the long history of distilling and its time-honored methods wouldn't mean much at all, if it weren't such a fine drink.

So sit back, relax and take a sip of the hard-earned creations of so many Hoosier distillers.

You might have run into a few whiskey snobs with big opinions on how it should be enjoyed and what you are supposed to like about it, but I think it's best to take the advice of a distiller.

>> I don't think there's any wrong way for someone to do it.

If you like cocktails, you like cocktails, right?

If you like you know, Wisconsin old fashioned made with all the sweet stuff and that stuff, have at it.

But if you also like those Victorian era cocktails and you want something on the higher end, go for it.

If you like it neat, drink it neat.

>> NARRATOR: No matter how you like to drink it, a great way to experience new flavors and learn more about what you like is a festival.

Bourbonfest in Columbus is one of many events in Indiana that can serve as a great entry point to bourbon and whiskey.

>> We have a lot of wonderful vendors that we want to showcase and want to make sure that everybody is comfortable when tasting bourbon.

They get to try a lot of unique bourbon.

You know, the big guys are always out there, and they are very well marketed and such.

We try to make sure that we focus on some of the local craft distilleries and the people who are up and coming and might not have their name as out there just yet.

So we try to make sure that they get a unique experience is what they are going to be tasting.

>> NARRATOR: In the pioneer village at Spring Mill State Park, they put together a little event to raise money for the new still they plan on building.

Near as they can guess, right where the old distillery was, nearly two centuries ago.

>> The park is 1300 acres.

We get roughly 800,000 guests a year.

The centerpiece of the park is the pioneer village that we're in right now.

In order for us to better tell the history of the village, we have to acknowledge that whiskey was a significant portion of their economy.

Our intent is to be as close to the way they would have done it back in the 1800s here in the village.

>> This is a fundraiser, and it's also to let people know that we are going to be opening up our distillery.

So as they go through here, they're going to get to talk to these distillers, and then when they get to the distillery, they will talk to Alan Bishop, who has just been a driving force in this whole thing.

>> NARRATOR: Bishop and park officials are working to make the new still as authentic as possible.

>> We are reestablishing a distillery at Spring Mills.

So much like the old mills all around southern Indiana, Spring Mills came along as basically an agricultural trade center.

The mill really wasn't the main focus of that particular village.

It was the distillery, by far, was doing most of the money making for that facility.

We'll actually be doing everything in an historic manner, right?

Everything will be off pot still.

It will all be handmade, hand mashed, et cetera, made from local grains and probably once the mill is back up and running, milled at the mill site.

This place, in my opinion, can become sort of the seat of Indiana distilling history.

>> There aren't a lot of distilleries in state parks.

I think we're actually going to be the only distillery in state parks in the nation that I could find.

>> Right here, there's that same kind of soil.

>> NARRATOR: The work is still underway, but they hope to have the still pumping out whiskey like they made in the 19th century by some time in 2025.

If you love the energy of these events and festivals, Starlight Distillery at Huber's Farms draws big crowds with something for everyone.

>> You can walk over and watch the grain being milled.

You can walk out through the fields and touch the corn and touch the rye in the springtime.

You can go into the stillhouse and smell the cooking and the mashing and come out here to the rickhouses, and you can walk through the different rickhouses and see the barrels and smell the smell that's in here.

>> NARRATOR: And it's a great place to find brandies that bring our 19th century distilling roots to life.

>> We showed Indiana that, hey, we can make great world-class -- we were winning not just awards, but international awards for being the best brandy in the world.

>> NARRATOR: If you are looking for something fresh and new, 18th Street Distillery in Hammond is blending inventive recipes with modern techniques to mix up a fresh take on cocktails.

>> Out of the gate, we started with rye whiskey, moonshine, and then our gin, and then we flipped over to bourbon.

Those were the cores that we had.

But, you know, at the end of the day, it wasn't good enough for me because I'm a creative guy, and I wanted all of these different brands to expand and show people that we are not just a one-dimensional distillery.

I think we are one of the best premier craft cocktail lounges in the region because we do use all of our own product that we make.

We make all of our juices fresh.

We have an amazing cocktail staff.

They are not bartenders.

They are bar professionals, and I know for a fact, that's what sets us apart from any other lounge in the region.

>> So this next drink is going to be our bubble bath.

We use our house gin, strawberry simple, lime simple, lemon juice, aquafaba, and we shake that hard so it comes out very nice, very delicate, very creamy.

>> NARRATOR: In Brown County, Bear Wallow offers a variety of cocktails to complement their large selection of whiskeys and moonshines.

>> We also make a line of Hoosier Hooch flavored moonshines, and lemonade is my favorite one of that.

So it's actually the Indiana State Fair, they sell our lemonade moonshine shake-up at the state fair.

It's kind of like a boozey -- it's a boozey lemon shake-up.

So it's a really good summer cocktail.

Our lemonade Hoosier Hooch Moonshine is 40 proof.

It's actually our unaged corn whiskey that we then add like a lemonade concentrate, sugar and water to.

So we put a couple shots of that in there, and then we just add lemonade.

So it's kind of equal parts lemonade moonshine and equal parts lemonade.

We use Ball jars, which is an Indiana company, to make our cocktails, and we use them as our shaker too.

So we just kind of shake it all up in the mason jar.

This is the lemonade and the lemonade moonshine.

Then it becomes your glass.

♪ >> NARRATOR: Cardinal Spirits in Bloomington combines an innovative approach to distilling with classic cocktails to create surprising new flavors.

>> Everything that we make and put into the bottle, you know, fermented, distilled, blended and bottled here on site.

We never use any, you know, artificial flavorings or chemicals in our products, but we do have, like, a really large portfolio, and that's because of this tasting room.

In the beginning, we only wanted to have a few products, but over time, as consumers come in and we have bartenders that want something, we started out with just vodka and then some gins and rums and whiskeys and liqueurs.

And the price is right, it tastes delicious, and it's local.

This is a slam dunk.

>> I'm gonna make the Terra old fashioned.

We'll start with a large rock.

And then we'll do some Terra botanical gin.

Some dry vermouth.

Our elderberry liqueur Flora, and two dashes of grapefruit bitters.

I'm going to stir it up until the sides of the glass frosts.

And then we'll add a nice grapefruit expression, and then we have the Terra old fashioned.

>> NARRATOR: They've taken it a step further, creating cocktails you can take with you.

>> In 2018, we started making canned cocktails.

This is this ready-to-drink market.

So, you know, we have a number of those.

Some of them were really popular drinks here at our tasting room.

So our Bramble Mule and our Maui Mule were kind of our two most popular cocktails.

>> NARRATOR: If cocktails aren't necessarily your thing, you may want to try a unique approach to a glass of whiskey.

Old 55 Distillery owner Jason Fruits is a bit of a mad alchemist, creating wild recipes that have caught the eye of the whiskey world.

>> So what we're known for is our sweet corn bourbon.

So that is 100% corn mash bill.

The difference is instead of regular yellow number two, that is sweet corn on the cob, sweet corn just like you eat.

We're the only ones in the world that make that.

Our mainstay bourbon line is our wheated bourbon.

That is our bread and butter, my favorite thing we make.

We harvest it on ground that's been in the family forever.

We then take that, once we harvest it, to the elevator that my dad owns, then we bring it here to the distillery that my family owns, which is incredible.

Truly 100% vertically integrated.

It's what allows me to do everything that I do, which is super cool.

>> NARRATOR: The use of traditional methods and heirloom ingredients has made Spirits of French Lick Distillery a darling in the industry.

>> We do grow a lot of our own corn.

I spent about ten years as a produce farmer/plant breeder.

We are the largest volume pot still distillery still in the state of Indiana, and I suspect that for a good while, it will stay that way.

We're not going to be everywhere all the time.

If you go somewhere and they do have us, they probably won't have all seven of the mainline products, and that's okay.

I think that some of that stuff, you should have to seek out, right?

There should be some -- some level of exclusivity to some of those things because the people who are going to appreciate that are the same people who are going to appreciate being on the hunt for it.

We have a cult following, and I think that that's worked out well for us because they support everything that we do.

>> NARRATOR: That former Seagram's plant, now owned by MGP, and still one of the largest distilleries in the U.S. has been quietly making quality spirits, including standard set and ryes for dozens of well-known brands across the country.

>> It doesn't matter if we're making product that's going to become George Remus bourbon or Rossville rye whiskey for ourselves or we're making whiskey today that's gonna be somebody else's label.

At the end of the day, we know that on the back of that label, it's gonna say distilled in Indiana.

And for the most part, most people will know that it came from here, from MGP.

>> NARRATOR: Distillers, just like the spirits they craft, are all unique, and each one has their own individual tastes.

>> I'm a sucker for a single malt.

I think that adds complexity, richness, but also, again, this nuance of using heirloomed grains that are grown right here in our state, that's gonna really elevate that product into the next stratosphere.

>> Well, our bourbon is our best seller, our Gnaw Bone Bourbon, and it -- we made a wheated bourbon because that's what I like.

I like wheated bourbons.

So that's why Gnaw Bone is a wheated bourbon.

So it will always be my favorite.

>> I think gin is my favorite spirit.

I drink more gin than anything else.

I also love whiskey, and I think most people that were getting into craft distilling want to make a really great whiskey.

And I think we make great whiskeys here.

>> I love Absente.

I love well-made absinthe, that is traditional absinthe, as best as it possibly can be, which is kind of hard to find.

>> Any time you can experience really old bourbon, it's just great, but I like high rye bourbon.

So that's even better.

Nobody else has that.

Yes, people have old bourbons, but not at that high rye mash bill.

And so those are just a treat.

>> NARRATOR: And sometimes it's good to switch it up.

>> I love water.

Water is something good to drink.

When you taste for a living, you have like 30 favorites that you keep at the house.

Well, I kind of go with what my wife wants to drink at home.

>> NARRATOR: That's a great list from industry professionals who know their spirits.

♪ >> NARRATOR: Craft distilling in the state is now more than a decade old, and the number and size of distilleries continues to grow.

>> Every year, the laws get a little better, and so it allows us to do a few more things.

It is a state that this is a viable option to open a business, make a good living off of doing it.

Some states are -- it's legal, but they have a lot of restrictions on it.

Indiana is getting better.

>> NARRATOR: As folks' tastes grow more savvy, Indiana is primed to take advantage of customers seeking something more than just Kentucky bourbon.

>> There is still more enthusiasm for bourbon and rye whiskey than there was even a few years ago.

And so I do think it's an and.

I think all of these different expressions of spirits, people want to try.

Some people are under the mindset, they haven't found their favorite yet, and so they want to keep exploring.

>> NARRATOR: And Hoosier distillers are here to meet that desire.

They are using time-honored techniques and innovative approaches to compete with the best distillers in the world.

>> If you look through the different Indiana distillers, and we are one of them, in the amount of awards hanging on our walls and hanging on our bottles, and you start watching some of the stuff, you will start seeing Indiana there everywhere, making world-class spirits, the awards are there.

We have everything in the state that we need, everything!

We just have to make more of it so more people get the chance to try it.

A lot of us are still young, especially in the whiskey industry.

There's not a lot of aged product yet.

So as our products keep getting older and older, and getting those on the market, we will be winning more and more awards and getting more recognition within the industry.

>> And so you have people now in this wave of American whiskey, they are seeking out flavors outside of Kentucky.

They may be 10% of the market now, but in five years, they could be 20%.

The palate of the American consumer is growing to the point where they are single-handedly asking and carrying brands like Spirits of French Lick, because they want different flavor profiles.

So Indiana could sit right in tradition.

They've got a rye that kind of has set the landscape for the ryes of American rye whiskey.

Or you can go down the path of kind of changing the conversation of how whiskey tastes with Spirits of French Lick, Starlight, are two examples.

I would throw in Cardinal as well.

You have these brands that can go one way or the other.

So the future for Hoosier whiskey is very bright, because they have so much diversity.

>> NARRATOR: In 2021, Hoosier lawmakers created a special designation called Indiana rye whiskey, that celebrates that classic Whiskey City style rye.

Just like Kentucky straight bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, this gives distillers another way to make a name for Hoosier spirits, but it's not the only way.

>> We have a program called Indiana Grown.

We've actually mapped out a trail where people can go and visit Indiana-grown distilleries and have that experience, and it has grown from just a few members at the beginning, to now 25 plus members on that trail, and it just continues to grow.

When you have agriculture and tourism intersect, like they do here in Indiana, it opens up a whole field of agritourism.

We see distilleries booming because of that intersection between agriculture and tourism.

We have 200 plus wineries.

We have 200 plus breweries, and we have seen the distilleries grow.

The future really is rich.

>> NARRATOR: Whether it's traditional distilling methods or cutting edge techniques, Hoosier spirits continue to mature, find new admirers, and help make the case for Indiana to take its rightful place as one of America's premier distilling states.

♪ >> Support for "Hoosier Spirit, Distilling in Indiana," provided in part by Hotel Tango, a veteran-owned and operated distillery offering crafted spirits, such as straight bourbon whiskey and Shmallow, toasted marshmallow bourbon, located in Indianapolis.

More at hoteltangodistillery.com.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!