Old Homestead Distillery
A small Southern Indiana distillery creating experiential spirits of high caliber and concepts with a wide selection of cocktails and cigars as well as lodging, entertainment and leisure options.
Right by Patoka Lake
Preserving Traditions While Pushing Boundaries
Old Homestead Distilling Co. features unique spirits crafted by Alan Bishop — Double Gold medalist, Platinum award winner, and one of America's most decorated craft distillers.
Award Winning Distiller
Pushing Boundaries While Preserving Tradition
A one-of-a-kind all-electric pot-still distillery located in the beautiful hills surrounding Patoka Lake. The distillery is dedicated to paying tribute to the distilling traditions and techniques of the geographical region known as the “Black Forest” while pushing the boundaries of innovation in products ranging from unique cordials, American whiskey, and brandy, to our own tribute to moonshining traditions: Sunshine, made from real sunflowers.
Our Founders and Collective Expertise
The distillery was started as a conversation about possibilities by Stephen Bartels, Heather Setser, and Stephen Shirk, together the owners of the wider award-winning Patoka Lake Marina and Winery and Alcohol Acres Establishment, and entrepreneurs and award-winning conceptual team Alan Bishop and Jolee Kazperzak. Friendships and partnerships were forged, and the group moved forward on a project that would satisfy the curiosity and thirst of guests the world over.
The Heritage of the Hoosier Frontier
The early Southern Hoosiers relied on unique skills, innovation, and instinct to survive a frontier wilderness and bring it into a civilized society. Their early homes, known colloquially as “Hoosier Nests,” served as an operating base for the productivity of these people. Drawing to her fertile valleys and forested hills farmers, preachers, store owners, millers, and more who brought their trades to the region and shaped a culture distinct from the northern part of the state and from our Kentucky neighbors to the south.
A Global Legacy of Distilling
Among these early settlers were distillers, descendants of distilling forefathers who plied their trade in Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy, France, and other European locales prior to coming to the East Coast and spreading their work throughout the colonies, particularly Maryland, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Even our founding fathers William Henry Harrison and Johnathan Jennings were distillery owners!
The Lost Traditions of Southern Indiana
Within Indiana these various distilling cultures amassed huge amounts of distilling information, which hybridized and represented unique styles and approaches not found elsewhere in the United States and which, with rare exception, were wiped out by the 1855-1858 statewide prohibition and later by national prohibition. They relied heavily upon practical experience and approaches as well as particularly upon the bounty of the land south of the glacial boundaries.
The Master Distiller’s Craft
Old Homestead Distillery is our tribute to these Hoosier distilling roots. We built this Homestead to produce phenomenal spirits inspired by the nearly lost traditions of the past and influenced and modified by the alchemy of the future. Our distiller, Alan Bishop, has spent decades studying the art of distillation across cultures and implementing both historic and innovative methodology into commercial production and experimentation, being responsible for many well-known and well-awarded spirits, and is just as much a historian of Indiana distilling history and methodology and historic Hoosier culture as he is a practical distiller. Hailing from distilling heritage throughout both sides of his family, Alan and his father, Dale, have been important driving factors in the distillery.
Specialized Batch Distillation and Heirloom Yeast
At Old Homestead we focus on batch still (pot) distillation, which limits our batch sizes to 500 gallons, allowing particular attention to detail across products and allowing for controlled variations within. We utilize unique strains of yeast that have been captured from long-closed historic Indiana distilleries and historical sites or obtained from distilling families and that are not available commercially. These yeast strains are a huge flavor factor in our distillery, bringing forth elements, both subtle and explicit, not found anywhere else.
Fermentation Influence by the Environment
We favor open-top fermentation and designed our distillery for maximum cross-ventilation to encourage local microbes to exert their influence upon the various fermentations that we perform, and quite often we collect and culture microflora from herbs, flowers, and various other factors to boost this effect. We ferment in both stainless steel and wooden fermenters depending on what the spirit in question may be best suited by.
Exclusive Grains and the ‘Elise’ Corn Strain
We source high-quality grain from within Indiana via the Sugar Creek Malt company for the majority of our whiskies and sunshines and turn to trusted industry friends such as Brooks Grain for options not otherwise available. Even our corn is different, as we are one of the few distilleries that has our own exclusive strain. Named ‘Elise,’ a composite, open-pollinated flint type bred by our distiller from crosses of over 150 heirloom varieties and which offers a palette of flavor options exclusive to us.
A Diverse Range of Inspired Spirits
We produce a range of cordials, brandies, liquors, and one-off, once-in-a-lifetime spirits inspired by the history of the Black Forest region and the cultures and superstitions found throughout the history of our state, often utilizing wildcrafted or homegrown ingredients and uniquely hand-modified grains, fruit, or herbs.
Innovation in Still Design and Configuration
Our pot stills are diverse and easy to modify, as even in the earliest days of Indiana distillation, patent stills with unique features and designs were often deployed. Here we focus on modifications that intensify flavor and aroma by way of creative integration of gin baskets, thumpers, infusers, Soxhlet extractors, and more. Some products require specific still configurations, such as our Sunshine, which is only ever distilled on our 250-gallon Artemisia still with her double thumper systems, while others are used to create unique expressions of mash bills or brandy recipes that are otherwise shared by way of simple double pot still distillation, single-pass short column distillation, or single-pass double thumper distillation, yielding various components to be used as appropriate.
Cask Maturation and Warehouse Philosophy
We mature in casks in an unheated dunnage-style warehouse using primarily Number 2 Char, medium-toast head, and Zak cooperage 53-gallon barrels and place particular value and quality on used casks, both for the flavor of their previous occupant and also for the more subtle oak qualities.
