The Journeyman story begins in the early 2000s, when a young Bill Welter traveled to St. Andrews, Scotland, chasing a passion for golf. There he found a dishwashing job and a friendship with a fellow traveler who shared his love of whiskey. Years later, when his old friend set out to build his own distillery in an old grain mill in Tasmania, Welter flew halfway around the world to work with him and learn from the country's best distillers. He came home with a new knowledge of whiskey and an idea he couldn't shake.

This book traces the path from that idea to the Journeyman distilleries of today, with all its ups and downs along the way. Learn about the first batch Bill ever made—a rye distilled at night, borrowing the facilities of a small Chicago distiller—and how he found the building to match his dreams: the Featherbone and Corset Factory in Three Oaks, Michigan, a nineteenth-century relic painstakingly resurrected board by board. What started as a small team of five, with the help of his father, Chuck, and his wife, Johanna, and his daughter growing up amid the barrels, has grown into an operation of three hundred employees across two locations, and a raft of award-winning, handcrafted spirits.

Bonded offers insights into the long history of distilling and the whiskey industry, along with a selection of cocktail recipes that have kept guests coming back for years, like the Bourbon Malted Milkshake, the Lavender Gimlet, and the classic rye Old Fashioned with orange marmalade simple syrup. It is a book for whiskey lovers, and for anyone who has tried to build something through grit and vision. This is the story of becoming a journeyman distiller and entrepreneur, with all the costly mistakes, long hours, and business downturns that process entails—and the story of the love of meeting those challenges to master a timeless craft and share it with the world.