The state's first micro-distillery under the new law will likely open in Nashville, where distiller Darek Bell is eyeing a location in the Gulch. Because Bell already operates a small distillery in Bowling Green, Ky., it won't take as long for him to amend his federal license as it could for startups to obtain one.
"Tennessee has a great spirits heritage, be it both legal and illegal," said Bell, who makes four products at Corsair Artisan Distillery: absinthe, vodka, rum and an award-winning gin.
Bell, 35, a local road construction executive, plans to add a Kentucky bourbon to his lineup of products and will produce a Tennessee whiskey at his Nashville distillery.
At least two other Nashville-area entrepreneurs plan their own distilleries, and a Sevierville, Tenn.-based group wants to capture the area's mountain heritage by producing an un-aged spirit to be marketed as Tennessee moonshine.
"It's about time," said Bill Owens of the California-based American Distilling Institute.
He considers it an epic shift on the micro-distilling landscape for Tennessee distillers to come onto the scene, saying that artisan whiskeys made here will certainly have the cachet of being Tennessee-made whiskeys, a seal of approval known worldwide.
"There are wonderful cultural roots of whiskey in Tennessee that have been suppressed by old-time laws," said Owens, who teaches a pair of weeklong classes each year on the art and science of distilling. His institute counts many of the nation's top craft distillers among its members.
"Your roots on moonshining run very, very deep," he said. "People have stories to tell, and now those stories can be told on bottle labels."
The micro-distillery movement has been growing across the country as craft distillers create a variety of small batches using local grains, fruits and water. There are some 156 craft distillers nationwide, up from just 20 seven years ago. Today's total is considered the most since before Prohibition.
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