The modern distillers: Virtuoso's vodka, and the distillery seated here under the other city's name

2014 — 2026

Virtuoso Distillers and 18 Vodka — the city's first documented modern distillery: Distilling returned to Mishawaka a hundred and seventy-five years after Wagner, on Grape Road. Steve Ross's Virtuoso Distillers, at 4211 Grape Road, made 18 Vodka — distilled eighteen times, in the name's own arithmetic — and is documented in operation in September 2014, when a Midwest Wanderer tour account found Ross distilling, by then for "a few years," grinding the grain and bottling under one roof; the change in Indiana's artisan-distillery law that first allowed tours, tastings and on-site retail sales had come the year before, and Ross's was among the houses it made visible. Ross's own claim for the house — that 18 Vodka was the only distiller in Indiana processing vodka from start to finish — is printed as his claim, in his words' substance, not as this history's finding. The operation is documented again in February 2016, when a Duke University chemistry account describes Virtuoso's two fractional distillation columns running — "rescuing" a bad batch of wine into vodka — and in the Indiana State Department of Agriculture's 2019 agritourism booklet, which lists Virtuoso Distillers, 4211 Grape Rd., Mishawaka, among the state's distilleries with its 18vodka.com address. On that record Virtuoso is Mishawaka's first documented distillery of the modern era — "first" carrying its "documented," and the documentation running 2014 to 2019. Its present state is not verified: the company's website stands as a shell page in the record reached in November 2026, and no current publication of the house was reached. The file prints the course it can prove and names the present as an open question, with the state permit record as its settling source.

South Bend Distillery — Mishawaka's by seat: The county's newest distillery carries the other city's name and this city's address, and the boundary rule runs by seat, not by signage: the South Bend Distillery stands at 55954 Currant Road, Mishawaka, and belongs to this build. Its own site, read first-hand in November 2026, presents a working house: premium small-batch whiskey, its Legion of Leprechaun whiskey sold online for pickup at the distillery; the Lou's Legends signature bottle series — Chris Zorich, Michael Stonebreaker, Frank Stams, Todd Lyght, Pat Terrell and Reggie Brooks — produced in partnership with the Holtz's Heroes Foundation; its spirits on the shelves of Martin's Supermarkets, the Mishawaka (Granger) stores among them; and a tasting room announced in the site's banner. The distillery's own web record begins in late 2024, and the house is documented selling its whiskey from its Currant Road seat by 2025–26 on that record. The tasting room stands as the banner leaves it — announced (the banner's "Opening Summer 2026" had passed when the site was read in November, and whether the room has opened is not established in the record reached) — and the house otherwise as operating. A distillery trading on Notre Dame's legends from a Mishawaka industrial road is the modern era in one entry: the name is marketing, the seat is fact, and this section follows the seat.

Sources:

1. Midwest Wanderer, "Tour and Taste at 18 Vodka, Mishawaka, Indiana" (9 September 2014) — Steve Ross distilling for a few years; the law change allowing tours, tastings and on-site sales; vodka distilled 18 times; the start-to-finish claim in Ross's telling; 4211 Grape Road; tours Wednesday through Saturday.
2. Duke University, Haas Lab blog (23 February 2016) — Virtuoso Distillery's fractional columns in operation, ethanol being recovered from wine into vodka.
3. Indiana State Department of Agriculture, 2019 Indiana Wine & Brew Agritourism Booklet — Virtuoso Distillers, 4211 Grape Rd., Mishawaka, St. Joseph Co., listed under Distilleries (18vodka.com); the same booklet's brewery and meadery lists used in this section's sweeps.
4. South Bend Distillery, the company's own website, read first-hand November 2026 — 55954 Currant Road, Mishawaka, IN 46545; Legion of Leprechaun whiskey sold online for local pickup; the Lou's Legends series and the Holtz's Heroes Foundation partnership; Martin's Supermarkets stockists; the tasting-room announcement in the site's banner; the site's own file record beginning late 2024.