CLEVELAND, Ohio — Whiskey-making is an old, time-bound process, or so folks in Kentucky and Tennessee will tell you.

But Tom Lix, from Northeast Ohio, is changing that. Lix is, in fact, helping to disrupt the distilled-spirits business through his startup company, Cleveland Whiskey. A whiskey-maturation process that takes traditional distillers six and a half years takes Lix less than 24 hours.

He’s the kind of entrepreneur you’ll hear featured at Startup Scaleup. The June 28 all-day Cleveland event, sponsored by the nonprofit JumpStart Inc., will offer seminars, speeches and networking opportunities. It aims to show experienced and fledgling business creators how people such as Lix make their particular magic work.

To do what Lix does — to make, market and sell a new whiskey brand — takes risk. He’s also offering new whiskey flavor profiles: sugar maple wood, apple wood, black cherry wood, honey locust and hickory.

But is takes money, too. A business like his can crowd-fund, but the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently changed the rules for raising relatively modest amounts from thousands of small investors. Lix will help clarify how this works in a session called “Win The Crowd:  Is Equity-Based Crowdfunding Right For Your Company?”

Read the full story at Cleveland.com.