‘Pioneering Our Own Path’: Hard Truth Distilling Introduces First 3 Homemade Bourbons

(Photo: Hard Truth Distilling Co.)

An exciting day came for Hard Truth Distilling Co. on Wednesday as the Nashville, Indiana brand announced the release of its first three homemade bourbons: Hard Truth Sweet Mash Bourbon, Hard Truth Sweet Mash Wheated Bourbon and Hard Truth Sweet Mash Four Grain Bourbon.

The three bourbons join Sweet Mash Rye and High Road Rye in the Hard Truth long-term lineup.

“We’ve taken a lot of pride in the process of building our distillery and working with industry leaders such as Vendome Copper & Brass Works to create a truly state-of-the-art facility,” Hard Truth Master Distiller and co-founder Bryan Smith said in a news release. “This moment, though, is particularly special because the first batch of sweet mash whiskey from our still, many years ago, was bourbon.”

Hard Truth Sweet Mash Bourbon is distilled from a mashbill of 73% corn, 19% rye and 8% malted barley. The wheated bourbon’s mashbill is composed of 69% corn, 19% wheat and 12% malted barley. Hard Truth Sweet Mash Four Grain Bourbon, meanwhile, is made from 78% corn, 9% rye, 9% wheat and 4% malted barley.

The Sweet Mash Bourbon is bottled at 90 proof, while the other two expressions are Bottled-in-Bond and thus presented at 100 proof.

“Bottled-in-bond is proof to the world that we’re making everything, grain-to-glass on our property,” Smith said. “We are a group of serious, hard-working whiskey distillers making honest whiskey here in Brown County. That’s why we always intended for bottled-in-bond to be part of our story.”

Sweet mash is a distilling process in which each batch begins with entirely fresh ingredients. It is the inverse of the sour mash method, in which backset from the previous batch is used to kickstart fermentation.

Since 2021, the Indiana-based whiskey producer has primarily stuck to rye on the whiskey front (we were particularly fond of last year’s Barrel Finished Reserve Series). Now, however, Hard Truth’s bourbons have had time to age to the satisfaction of the distillery.

Hard Truth’s Sweet Mash Bourbons will release at the distillery on Feb. 24 and in select markets starting March 1. Hard Truth Sweet Mash Bourbon is priced at $44.99 per 750-milliliter bottle, while the Wheated Bourbon Bottled in Bond is priced at $54.99 and the Four Grain Bourbon Bottled in Bond at $59.99.

According to Hard Truth, all of the corn and most of the wheat in its bourbons are grown by fifth-generation Indiana farmer Doug Miller, and a majority of the rye comes from a different Indiana farmer, Dr. Duane Kuhlenschmidt.

“We’ve always been a bourbon company, we’ve just been waiting for the right moment to introduce ours to the world,” Smith said.

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