Travis built his first still out of a turkey fryer and had a brief stint as a moonshiner, giving his spirits to friends and family as gifts. Travis’ first forays into distilling were a result of exposure to his family and friends distilling spirits for personal consumption. The distillery seems to heed the words of Field Marshall Helmuth Moltke (AKA Moltke the Elder) – “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” “Not everything has worked out exactly as we’d planned,” Travis admits, “but we’re still small enough that we can shift and pivot.” Travis attributes much of Hotel Tango’s initial success to its relatively small size and subsequent agility. The fireplace was hand built by Barnes’ father. We brought in experts from everywhere from Chicago to Miami – 20 year veterans of bartending – and had them build a cocktail menu with our spirits. So our gin, vodka, rum, and limoncello are the four we have currently. Our place is set up like a pre-prohibition style ‘tasting room,’ but the deal is we can only sell alcohol that we make in house.
I spoke with Travis over the phone in late February, after some former bartending colleagues mentioned Hotel Tango in passing. Hotel Tango functions much like a traditional tasting room. After about 15 months of red tape, Hotel Tango Distillery opened its doors last September and has since been very successful. They became the only artisan distillery in Indiana without a brewery or winery attached. Given Travis’ passion for distillation and the overall business and legal acumen in their partnership group, the five friends applied. However, the window for non-vintner/brewer applicants was only open until December 2013. In July 2013, the Indiana legislature passed PL 109-2013, which legally defined “artisan distillation” and effectively allowed for distilleries to function similarly to brew pubs and wine tasting facilities, which is to say they can bottle, sell, and serve their spirits on premises. The distillery is a perfect example of being in the right place at the right time. Hotel Tango is a partnership between Hilary and Travis (the eponyms for Hotel Tango), their law school friends Adam Willfond and Nabeela Virjee, and Brian Willsey, a then-MBA student at the University of Indianapolis (and Nabeela’s husband). As Travis was finishing law school, amongst late-night conversations with his eventual business partners (including his wife, Hilary) and citing “bad grades and a worse economy,” the idea for Hotel Tango was born.
After his honorable discharge as an E-5 from the Marines in 2006, he finished college and enrolled in Indiana University’s Richard H. While discussing his past, Travis gave me a quick look into some of his experiences with drinking and the military, which squarely involved a friend of his waking up naked in a hotel room in Hong Kong, missing his boat’s departure, and having to spend his last two weeks before Iraq in the ship’s brig. After INDOC, Travis joined 1 st Recon Battalion for its initial push into Iraq in 2003 and then did two follow-on tours in Fallujah and Ramadi. He enlisted in the Marine Corps that same year as an infantryman and while at the School of Infantry (SOI), was picked to go through Reconnaissance Selection and Indoctrination (aka INDOC).
He started college in the fall of 2001 and promptly dropped out a month later after the 9/11 attacks. Travis is an Indiana native from Noble County. It’s fortunate for us then that Travis Barnes, a veteran of 1 st Recon Battalion, has recently opened Hotel Tango Distillery in Indianapolis. While a number of notable military men have made forays into brewing and distillation (George Washington comes to mind), most of these men kept their stock for themselves and their guests. From the Khans drinking Kumis (fermented mare’s milk) after razing villages, and Napoleon’s cavalry sabering champagne on horseback, to David Stirling and his “Desert Rats” enjoying flasks of cognac and scotch after shooting up an airfield during World War II, the tradition of enlisted men and officers celebrating their victories with drink is a long one. Few things are as closely tied together as military tradition and alcohol.
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