Small producers blaze new trails across the country with whiskey and more By Lew Bryson hen a whiskey-making business restarts on a mily rm after a hiatus extend- ing back to Prohibition, using nearly 200-year-old stills and a recipe from the same era, it deserves notice. Amid a flood of new distillers across North America, the proprietors of places like Indian Creek Dis- tillery, near Dayton, Ohio, stand out r their ith in historic equipment as well as their ad- herence to traditional techniques and even vintage farming methods. With the number of small distilleries in the United States growing rapidly-it recently topped 750, according to the American Dis- tilling Institute-there's been debate over what to call them. The te "small distillery," like "microdis- tillery," is descriptive but potentially limiting, so "craft" is becoming the nomenclature of choice. But a few distilleries are setting them- selves apart even further and deserve to be called "artisanal." It's a term that has been overused in a number of categories, from axes to pickles. But in the word's strictest sense- something produced in limited quantities, us- ing traditional methods-some small distillers squarely fit the bill. What llows are profiles of some of the most distinctive and exciting artisanal producers in the country today. NOV. 15, 2015 • WINE SPECTATOR 105