INDIANAPOLIS -- If you rang in the new year with cheers and drinks, there's a chance you picked a spirit made in Indiana.
A family business in Nashville, Indiana is tapping into the new trend of drinking locally.
The Indiana family is turning Indiana grains into Indiana whiskey.
"We actually kind of bill ourselves as an agri-tourism business more than a bar," Bear Wallow Distillery Owner Susan Spagnulo said.
When Spagnulo from Columbus got the idea for Bear Wallow Distillery, she had to convince more than her family that producing high proof alcohol could mesh with tourism in Nashville.
"The first thing we realized was that it was illegal in Indiana," Spagnulo said.
The prohibition era law kept the Spagnulo's from opening shop until August 2014.
They first worked with a local group and their legislators to pass a bill to allow legal distillation of alcohol in the state. The new law allows them with permits to sell where they produce.
"There's a big moonshining history here in Brown County which we have really kind of tapped into," Spagnulo said.
Making the Mash...helping anyways :)I got to help pour 50 pound bags of rye into the pot to make the mash for Bear Wallow's spicy, rye whiskey!
Posted by Lauren Casey, RTV6 on Friday, 1 January 2016
It is rare for a female to own a distillery, and they use that advantage.
"My goal was to introduce women to whiskey," she said.
The family business is now producing six different whiskeys, using everything from corn to wheat, to malted barley and rye.
Master distiller, Adam, works full-time at Bear Wallow alongside his mom and said by using grains and ingredients from local farmers, they are about to develop a synergy.
Close relationships allow Bear Wallow to utilize a no waste system, giving spent mash back to the farms as feed.
Spagnulo's husband Mike works a separate job, but leads their popular Farm to Fifth Tours on the weekends, when he gets to share the family's love and knowledge of their local libations.
"It sounds glamorous to have a wife that owns a distillery and it is pretty glamorous, actually, but it is a lot of hard work," Mike Spagnuolo said.
But by leaning on each other, the Spagnulo's are paving the way for a new type of a tourism in Indiana.
"It's nice to be able to work through problems that we face here at the business and know that the other person across the table has your back," Adam Spagnulo said.
Many people wonder how Bear Wallow can call one of their products bourbon. They say that Kentucky loves to think you can't produce it anywhere else, but you actually can.
Watch their explanation in the video below:
