MITCHELL – The Friends of Spring Mill State Park are hosting their annual meeting in the Lakeview Room of the Spring Mill Inn on March 15 at 6 pm. The public is invited to hear what this group of volunteers has been working on in the past year. They will report on several new and innovative projects at Spring Mill State Park. They also have more plans for the future that they believe the public will be interested in and with which they would welcome people’s help.
One of those projects is restoring the Village distillery at Spring Mill. Alan Bishop, the head distiller at Spirits of French Lick, will speak at the annual meeting. Bishop will talk about his work using historic yeast strains to craft beverages. Bishop will explain how he was able to trap the yeast of Jonathan Turley’s applejack whiskey from the historic logs in Turley’s distillery. The distillery hasn’t been in operation for over 100 years, but he could pull the yeast from the air and distill new whiskey from the yeast that smelled of Turley’s apples. Bishop is leading a revolution in the craft distilling world and has an interest in helping Spring Mill State Park restore an operating still in the old distillery.
The annual meeting will also cover the group’s accomplishments over the past year. The group welcomes more members. Teena Ligman, Friends of Spring Mill State Park (SMSP) President encourages people to come to the annual meeting to learn more about what the group does to support projects and events at Spring Mill State Park as well as about their plans to restore the distillery.
There will be refreshments and door prizes, including a $100 gift card for the Inn. Ligman said RSVPs are appreciated so they have enough refreshments. Please call/text Ligman at 812-278-0139 if you plan to attend the meeting.
Ligman said anyone who is curious about the Friends group is welcome to attend and find out more about the group. She noted that we are lucky to have such an amazing state park locally, and she is glad to have such a dedicated group of volunteers working together to help make the park even better! For more information about the annual meeting contact tdligman@att.net.
