Distillery Visit - Old 55
Old 55’s sign, on the front wall of the distillery facilities.
Newtown, Indiana - based in a small town with just a few hundred residents in rural Indiana, Old 55 Distillery is a true estate (or ‘grain to glass’/’farm’) distillery. Grains are grown on the family farm that surrounds the distillery, the mashing and fermentation and distilling are completed in a large barn, the barrels are aged in the lower levels of an adjacent building, and each bottle is filled and labeled by hand before packing for transportation.
We visited during a charitable event for the families of law enforcement officers that fell in the line of duty - the End of Watch Legacy Fund, run by Indiana Bourbon. The event was celebrated with a silent bottle auction benefitting the families, as well as an exclusive single-barrel bottling.
Built on the remains of a local schoolhouse (a new building was erected for the fermenting, distilling, and bottling; barrel aging takes place in the lower levels of the original school building), all grain used in the mashing and fermentation process is grown on site. This includes sweet corn, used in the distillery’s unique 100% sweet corn bourbon whisky. One mash is done per day, Monday through Friday, and then each batch is left to ferment for a week.
The stills were imported from Germany, where they were designed and fabricated by Kothe. The distillation setup consists of a pot still, followed by a column still with a unique setup - it has been separated into three individual but connected columns, allowing a large number of plates in a much more manageable space. With the three sections of the column still, the spirit can undergo up to 19 distillations/plates.
Once the spirit is ready for barreling, it enters new charred oak casks with a 30 gallon capacity, as opposed to the standard 53 gallon, which allows for more impactful wood interaction in a shorter amount of time. Whiskies are aged to at least four years, and once ready, they are bottled by hand (2 at a time) just a few yards from the stills and warehouse, and labels are applied.
All releases at this point have been single barrel bottlings; for the time being, the plan is to stick to that style. Bourbons comprise the majority of releases, including the special 100% Sweet Corn bourbon - a bourbon whisky in which the entirety of the mash bill is sweet corn grain. Recently, the distillery has also branched out into single malts, and more whiskies are in the works. Bottles are generally presented at 50% strength or cask strength, which can range from 55% ABV up to 62% ABV or more.
The distillery also has a tasting room and cocktail bar, where they serve samples of their whiskies and several whisky-forward cocktails.
-Ethan and Hannah (Me, My Wife, and Whisky)
