This lesson is made more palatable by trays of small samples of craft beer: Six Foot Blonde, Hoosier Red Ale, and Cherry Wheat Ale.
The helpful hostess displays all the involved grains in their raw and cooked state, and fields questions on various topics. After some time to wander around the gift shop, the tour ends with a tasty toast of cinnamon vodka.
By this point in the tour, the sun is over the yardarm and one is beginning to feel the first cumulative effects of all the various tastings combined.
Just in the nick of time, Brad and Carl save the day with a box full of sack lunches from the Nashville General Store: a generous ham sandwich on some good bread, chips, and a soda. As welcome as a feast in the arduous ongoing tasting campaign.
Brown County Winery, a family business for 30 years.
This repast is enjoyed on the spacious and lovely back porch at Hard Truth Hills, a truly amazing facility. The next stop on the tour takes us to Gnaw Bone and Bear Wallow Distillery, 4484 East Old State Road 46, where Brown County’ s first legally-made whiskey was distilled starting in 2014.
Mike, an intense man in horn-rimmed glasses, a kind of professor of alcohol chemistry, gave a short but detailed explanation of how distilled spirits are made, while standing next to an old fashioned Scottish gooseneck copper pot still that produces about 100 gallons of 140-proof, good, clean, sweet, crystal-clear whiskey” in a week-long run.
Bear Wallow Distillery tour.
A visit to the barrel room includes an informative lesson on the place of charred white oak barrels in the process of making Bourbon.
Then, it’ s tasting time! The liquor evangelist sets out a row of various spirits and explains each one. Participants are encouraged to stick out their tiny little barrel-shaped glasses for a little taste of anything that sounds interesting. Barrel Strength 120-proof whiskey? Yes! Backwoods Blackberry Moonshine? Sure! Liar’ s Bench Straight Rye Whiskey? Why not? The final stop on the Sippin’ Trip is at the Brown County Winery, 4520 State Road 46 East. The family-run winery has been in operation for more than three decades, turning out about 30,000 gallons a year from grapes, berries, and other fruits.
Their strawberry wine was named“ Fruit Wine of the Year” in 2017 at the Indy International Wine Competition and the Vista Red was awarded best in class.
Amidst a forest of stainless steel vats, the tour group is offered a taste of a series of flavorsome wines along with a short explanation of the process by which the wine develops, from fruit to vat to barrel to bottle.
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