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Craft Spirits Success Story's Second Distillery is a Knockout
I have a ton of respect for Bill and Johanna Welter of Journeyman Distillery, both for the quality of their products and their dedication to sourcing organic Midwestern grain. I first visited with them in early 2012 in Three Oaks, Michigan, just a few months after they opened their first distillery, which is still going strong.
So when the nice people at H2 Public Relations here in Chicago – who represent Journeyman – invited me to join a group of media folks, public relations reps and influencers on a bus trip to Journeyman’s recently opened complex in Valparaiso, Indiana this past Saturday (November 16), well, they had me at hello.
It was one of the better choices I've made lately. A tour and tasting led by the Welters, capped by a delicious lunch in the complex’s Union Hall restaurant, made for one of the most fun days out I’ve had this year. If you are a lover of adult beverages and live in the Chicago area, I can heartily recommend the relatively short ride to Valpo to visit Journeyman’s American Factory.
After the group enjoyed the refreshing mocktails set out upon arrival, the tour began with Bill Welter providing the background of how the American Factory came to be. The complex was retrofitted into industrial buildings, vacant since 1984, that previously produced items such as windshield wipers, soap, woolens and pins.
The Welters had done a similar rehab job in Three Oaks, installing a distillery in a factory building that once had produced corsets and buggy whips.
Bill is a first-generation distiller who took a roundabout route to the trade. His family owned a bank in northwest Indiana, where he started working after graduating from college on a golf scholarship. When the bank was sold in 2006, he took a break and worked at the historic St. Andrew’s golf course in Scotland, where he learned a lot about whiskey. He followed up by working at a friend’s distillery in Tasmania, then apprenticed at Koval, Chicago’s first distillery since Prohibition.
Journeyman then opened its Michigan distillery in 2011. As a freelance journalist, I wrote one of the first articles about the company; during the tour, Bill was kind enough to refer to me as Journeyman’s “original influencer.”
He added, “I think it's an important note to make that there were less than 250 distilleries in the United States at the time. It was before anyone thought that craft distilling was going to be a thing. And we did it just because my wife and I wanted to make something, and the whiskey piece tied into my history and love of Scotland.” He noted that there are now about 3,000 distilleries nationwide.
Once the company’s success in Michigan was established, the couple then turned to Bill’s longstanding goal to build a second distillery in his hometown. Bill said, “When we came here, there was an opportunity to take a building that was the eyesore of Valpo and bring it back to life.” They settled on the Valparaiso site in 2019, but complications resulting from the COVID pandemic delayed the ribbon cutting until October 2023, and work on the distillery plant was just finalized this week.
En route to where Journeyman’s liquid magic is made, the tour group stopped by two event spaces that were both decked out beautifully for weddings. Johanna Welter, who formerly worked at the Four Seasons and the Ritz Carlton in Chicago, takes the lead in this part of the business.
Johanna noted that the larger space accommodates up to 700 guests or 500 seated. While these events, which also include corporate gatherings, provide important revenue diversification, Johanna said, “It's been part of the extension of our storytelling... It's really great to work with all of these amazing vendors that come and help transform these spaces into whatever the couple had in mind.” A large catering kitchen is adjacent to the event spaces.
Bill noted they deliberately didn’t do anything to alter the beams and walls because “we really wanted to highlight the fact that it was an old factory building.”
As we walked to the distilling plant, Bill explained that the stills were produced in Kentucky by the Vendome company, and the brewery equipment came from Wisconsin as part of a conscious effort to emphasize American-made. Then head distiller Jason Ripptoe – who was hired away from Castle and Key distillery in Kentucky – described what goes into Journeyman’s spirits.
“We're an all-organic distillery, so we're sourcing the best grains from Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. All of our production starts out back with the grain silos. Once we get grain in, we primarily use rye, wheat and corn, sometimes malted barley as well,” Jason said. He noted that each production batch requires more than 7,000 pounds of grain, which results in about 4,000 gallons of liquid spirits.
Organic Midwestern grain was rather scarce when Journeyman first opened 13 years ago. As the group moved to another part of the plant, I caught a moment with Bill and reminded him that when I asked him back then if he was able to source organic locally, he said he was getting his grain from Canada and joked that since we were in Michigan, that was pretty local.
Thanks to the rise of the artisan grain movement, Journeyman now does most of its sourcing within the region and has played its own role in that transition. Bill explained, “Over time, a lot of local farms converted to organic based on our commitment” to purchase from them.
After another round of Distilling 101 with Jason, we moved on to Journeyman’s biggest new wrinkle: the Sea of Monsters brewery. Head brewer Greg Winget explained that the brewery, which officially opened in June, is currently a one-man operation, adding, “It’s a labor of love.”
Greg described how, like the distillery, the brewery prioritizes locally and sustainably produced grain. “We're talking about grain that comes from within 100 miles of the brewery,” he said. “A lot of this comes from family farms. And then the people who are creating the grain products that we use are artisans in and of themselves. So these are people who spend a great deal of time creating malt and products made with grain that are of exceptional quality, and all come from within a very close range of where we're using them to produce beer.”
The tour reached its home stretch with a seated tasting of several of Journeyman’s spirits. This was capped by a new specialty whiskey called Ravenswood 13. Journeyman’s original brown liquor was produced when Bill worked at Koval in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood, and the blend in Ravenswood 13 includes some liquid reserved from that first distillation.
As a nice touch, the whiskey is sold in a black bottle shaped like a raven, which recalled to me the object of desire in one of my favorite movies, The Maltese Falcon, which starred Humphrey Bogart.
The day ended on a high note with yummy food in the Union Hall restaurant. I had the blackened salmon with a homemade slaw...
... washed down appropriately with a barrel-aged Manhattan.
As our bus turned toward Chicago and home, we caught a glimpse of the Indiana sunset.
Click the button below to learn more about Journeyman and its products, and to order online.
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