Hotel Tango Distillery sits in a converted art deco building at 702 Virginia Avenue in Indianapolis’s Fletcher Place neighborhood, founded in 2014 by husband-and-wife team Travis and Hilary Barnes. Travis, a former U.S. Army artillery officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, partnered with Hilary, who brought business operations expertise from her corporate background. They chose the name Hotel Tango from military phonetic alphabet letters H and T, representing their initials while honoring Travis’s military service. The 10,000-square-foot facility houses custom-built copper stills and produces bourbon, rye whiskey, vodka, gin, and rum. What started as a dream during Travis’s deployment became Indiana’s first combat veteran-owned distillery, opening its doors in September 2014 after navigating Indianapolis’s complex licensing requirements. The couple invested their life savings and raised additional capital through private investors, transforming the former Fletcher Place space into a working distillery with an industrial-chic tasting room. Master Distiller Travis Barnes handles production while Hilary manages operations, creating a true family operation that’s grown from startup to established Indianapolis destination. The distillery produces everything on-site using locally sourced grains when possible, with their bourbon featuring a high-corn mash bill aged in new charred oak barrels. Their commitment to quality over quantity shows in their careful attention to each batch, with Travis personally overseeing the distillation process from grain to glass.
