Matt’s First Tour Of Hard Truth Distillery

A few weeks ago, while Matt and I were filming a video reviewing a whiskey from the Hard Truth Distillery, Matt mentioned he had never been to the Hard Truth Distillery in Nashville, Indiana. We set a date to visit the distillery and I contacted Hard Truth and arranged for us to take a tour. They set us up for an “Inside the Barrel” tour and we left on Saturday to take the tour.

We arrived in plenty of time before the tour and Matt ordered an old fashioned to drink while we waited for the tour to start. At the time for the tour, we each were given an old fashioned cocktail to begin the tour. We sipped on the cocktail as we took the tour. The tour started in the distillery. We went upstairs where they were mashing the Bourbon recipe and the tour guide, Nathan, did the explanation of the sweet mash process, and then moved over to the stills. He discussed the distilling process and pointed out that they had two column stills and the second still was for making vodka. We then moved downstairs to the bottling line area and he discussed barrel entry proof, 118, and bottling the products. It was all standard information that I have heard many times before, but the other people on the tour asked many questions and everyone was enjoying the tour.

We left the distillery proper and walked down the hill to warehouse one. They use palletized whiskey storage and have many pallets in this warehouse, but it was not filled to capacity. They had a tasting area set up with some comfortable chairs and two barrels to thieve from. This is where the cocktail glass becomes important because they let us thieve whiskey from the barrels and into these glasses. The barrels contained a Bourbon whiskey and a Rye whiskey. After showing everyone how to use a whiskey thief, everyone lined up to get their samples. The whiskeys were excellent and Nathan used the time to answer questions and to get opinions on the whiskey. After about twenty minutes of tasting whiskey, we had to excuse ourselves from the tour as we had lunch reservations at the restaurant.

Lunch was excellent. I had a Paper Plane cocktail, as did Rosemary. Matt tried a cocktail that was a variation of a tropical cocktail but I don’t remember what it was called. Matt enjoyed it. Becca just drank water as she was driving us home after the tour. We started with an appetizer of a Bavarian pretzel. Rosemary and I each had the chicken and biscuits, Becca had the meatloaf and Matt had a salad and wild game meatballs. We ended the meal by sharing a peach cobbler. It was an excellent meal.

We all enjoyed the tour quite a bit. My one suggestion to Hard Truth is that they need to put a walkway with hand rails down the hill from the distillery to the warehouse. I am old enough that it was a hard walk for me to get down that steep hill on the road. Other than that, I think it is an excellent tour and needs no improvement. I want to thank Hard Truth Distillery for hosting us on this tour. It was very much enjoyed and appreciated.