Made in ILLINOISouth

Witness Distillery

Positioned perfectly across from the iconic Old State Capitol in Vandalia, there sits a building full of stories and spirits. Witness Distillery offers up some amazing whiskey, rum, and vodka – but the story of how they got their start and why they bought this particular building is just as equally amazing. “What many people don’t know is that when this building was built in the 1860’s, the state of Illinois was the largest producer of whiskey in the country – and Vandalia had two distilleries at the time,” explains Rick Radliff, who owns Witness Distillery with his wife Cindy. While this building was not originally a distillery, it still has a lot of history that attracted the Radliffs. It has the oldest working elevator in the state, along with another very cool feature. “Downstairs there is what used to be an entrance where merchants could walk underground to the bank and make a deposit at night and be safe. We wanted to make sure that people could see that,” Radliff says.

Rick started out making rum in his garage with a ten gallon still, and his interests grew from there. Now his production is on a much larger scale, and they are happy to give tours to all who are interested. “When folks come, we can walk them through how we process,” says Radliff. “All the way from milling our own grain, which we do out back. We bring that in, we cook that in our mash tun, to convert that starch to sugar – then we move that into our fermenters. We pitch our yeast, and about four days later we have whiskey that is ready to run through the still. Out of that 450 gallons of mash, we’ve got about 45 gallons of alcohol – that’s what we utilize to make our products,” he explains. One of the biggest parts of that process is that practically everything they do at Witness Distillery is with a ‘local first’ mentality.

“We locally source our water from a spring just north of Vandalia. We also locally source our grains, our grains come from right here in Fayette County – especially the corn,” Radliff adds.

For those who visit Witness, there is plenty to do. Aside from the aforementioned tours, they are connected to Blind Society - a great restaurant with an expansive menu. On top of that there is the Whiskey Underground, which is fittingly located in the basement of the building, and is an awesome place to go simply for drinks. There is also a merchandise area with clothing, spirits and more to purchase. The Radliffs say the last five years of building Witness from the ground up has been a ton of work, but there are many moments where the reward is evident. “People have told us that we have been successful in producing a quality spirit, which we felt that it was – but it’s nice to have that affirmation,” explains Cindy Radliff. “When we first started down this journey I thought Rick was just talking, but I’m really glad we’re taking this journey because I believe this business will help us to revitalize this area a little bit more, bring some people in from other places to see Vandalia.”

To watch our ‘Made in ILLINOISouth’ feature video on Witness Distillery, make sure to check out ILLINOISouth’s YouTube channel!