Not too long ago, “Tennessee whiskey” was a synonym for a single brand: Jack Daniel’s. Although Tennessee had a robust whiskey industry prior to Prohibition — which started in 1909 and ran until 1937 in the state, 15 years longer than the period imposed by the federal government — just three distilleries operated after restrictions were lifted. Over the course of decades, Jack reached juggernaut status, eclipsing not just its in-state competition, which was mainly George Dickel, but Kentucky’s biggest brands, too.
But in the past decade or so, the surge of interest and investment in American whiskey, centered on Kentucky bourbon, has extended to Tennessee. Dozens of craft distilleries have opened, some interpreting the traditional charcoal-mellowed style and others trying new and novel whiskeys. The legacy brands of Jack and George have embraced a spirit of experimentation, too, rolling out releases that show off a much wider range than they previously produced.
Within the dynamic growth and general enthusiasm, a question has emerged about the meaning and identity of “Tennessee whiskey.” Now that a variety of whiskeys are being made in Tennessee, how important is the historic style, defined as straight bourbon that has undergone the maple charcoal filtration known as the Lincoln County Process? Can other types of whiskey achieve the same success as traditional Tennessee whiskey? And do whiskey drinkers even really care about the differences?
The Revival of a Historic Industry
Tennessee’s modern whiskey renaissance started in 2009, when the legislature passed a law allowing any county which permitted on- and off-premise spirits sales (so-called “wet” counties) to authorize distillery operations. Overnight, the state went from having just three counties that allowed distillation to 44, with counties that were “dry” or “damp” (having some municipalities that allowed spirits sales) still ineligible.
That changed four years later, in 2013, when a bill was passed into law that allowed distilleries to operate in wet municipalities, even if they were surrounded by dry areas, raising the number of counties eligible for distillery businesses to 75. The bill was strongly supported and advocated by the founders of Chattanooga Whiskey, who had been bottling barrels purchased from MGP Distillery but were eager to get their own facility up and running.
“Tennessee whiskey as a category, while it’s been around for a long time and it’s very well established, is still very small. There’s only a few players in that category.”
“We were inspired by the fact that there was this unbelievable history of whiskey not just in Lynchburg [where Jack Daniel’s is made] but everywhere in Tennessee, and Chattanooga was arguably at the heart of that pre-Prohibition,” says Chattanooga Whiskey founder and CEO Tim Piersant. The company opened its first distillery in Chattanooga in 2015, with a second, larger facility following in 2017.
Many others were doing the same. The Tennessee Distillers Guild formed in 2014 with 13 members. Just three years later, it launched the Tennessee Whiskey Trail with 26 distillery stops. Now in 2025, there are more than 40 distilleries stretching the length of the state, from Memphis to Bristol.
The rapid expansion of distillation in Tennessee has been embraced by the two biggest brands, Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel. “I’m glad that there are so many people and new businesses educating people about what Tennessee whiskey is and telling our stories,” says Nicole Austin, general manager and distiller at Cascade Hollow Distilling Co., which makes George Dickel. “To me, it’s a great thing.”
Chris Fletcher, master distiller for Jack Daniel’s, says the industry’s growth is “incredibly good” for both the brand and the category as a whole. “I think we’ve just gotten so far behind because of the history of the state and some of the Prohibition laws that were in place that restricted distilling,” he says. “If you think about our friends up to the north in Kentucky, you have about a dozen household names in whiskey — legacy brands. And in Tennessee, just because of the restriction of the laws, we lost a lot of that.” Fletcher serves as vice president of the Tennessee Distillers Guild’s board of directors and personally tries to mentor new distillers by welcoming them to the Jack Daniel’s distillery to learn about its process.
Expansion and Premiumization
Among the state’s most successful newer whiskeys is Uncle Nearest, which is headquartered in Shelbyville and distilled in Columbia. Launched eight years ago by entrepreneur Fawn Weaver, the brand pays homage to a formerly enslaved man, Nearest Green, a master distiller who taught Jack Daniel himself the trade. Speaking prior to a federal judge ordering the brand be placed in receivership for defaulting on more than $100 million in loans, Weaver said that consumer pull-through for Uncle Nearest is up double digits.
“Uncle Nearest right now has more brand name recognition; the fan base is growing; they’re becoming locked into ‘Uncle Nearest or nothing,’” Weaver says. “We’re seeing a lot of that as people come to understand the importance of the brand and its success.”
Another Tennessee whiskey brand that’s already generating buzz, even before its debut: AJ Bond, the project that Buffalo Trace parent company Sazerac has been quietly nurturing for the last several years. Currently distilled at a site in Laverne, with plans to build out a full distillery and visitor center in Murfreesboro, the whiskey is set to launch in the first quarter of 2026 as a combination of pot- and column-still Tennessee whiskeys aged six to nine years.
Master distiller Allisa Henley has been working on AJ Bond since the beginning; Sazerac tapped her and John Lunn, both formerly of George Dickel, to get things up and running and to design the eventual final product. Lunn passed away in 2023, but Henley is carrying on the pair’s shared vision.
“We wanted to make what we’re calling a true Tennessee whiskey. By that, we really wanted to stay authentic and incorporate as much of Tennessee as we could into the product,” Henley says, adding that both the whiskey’s grain and the oak used for barrels are grown in-state. Even though Sazerac has a Kentucky bourbon focus, she thinks the company’s fans will embrace AJ Bond.
“Tennessee whiskey as a category, while it’s been around for a long time and it’s very well established, is still very small,” she says. “There’s only a few players in that category, which gives us plenty of room to enter it.”
“It was never about how do we become the next great Tennessee whiskey? It was really about how do we become the next great whiskey?”
The big players haven’t been resting on their laurels, however. Both Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel have stepped up their new releases over the past decade to feature more experimental and higher-value offerings, including a number of high-age-statement whiskeys. Austin’s tenure at Cascade Hollow, now in its eighth year, has been punctuated with releases that nod to her background in craft distilling, like the Dickel x Leopold Bros. Collaboration Blend, a combination of Cascade Hollow’s column-distilled rye and the unique Three Chamber rye made at Denver’s Leopold Bros. Distillery. “These kinds of collaborations have been some of my absolute favorite projects,” Austin says. “They are so niche that I think mostly they are appreciated by existing whiskey enthusiasts, but I love that.”
At Jack Daniel’s, experimental, distillery-only releases called the Tennessee Tasters’ Series have encompassed whiskeys like a rye finished in maple barrels and a Tennessee whiskey finished with Jamaican allspice wood. The distillery has also leaned into high-proof single barrels with its Coy Hill range and has launched an age-statement series that continues to add ever-older expressions, including a 14-year-old this year.
“Innovation has been equal parts of our history and honoring what Mr. Jack did, and then also looking at what we have to leverage within our own team to drive different flavors. To me that’s the recipe,” Fletcher says, noting that the age statements are a revival of whiskeys that Jack Daniel himself made 130 years ago. “To recreate that, I think the consumer has had this aha moment of ‘Wow, this is such a rich history of whiskey-making at Jack Daniel’s. It’s not just Old No. 7.’ While we certainly love Old No. 7, people haven’t really realized the diversity in our history in the different products that we’ve done.”
When Tennessee Whiskey Isn’t Actually Tennessee Whiskey
Unsurprisingly, the craft sector has generated a wide range of whiskeys that go far beyond Tennessee tradition. Corsair was an early pioneer with smoked single malt and malted rye, among many other styles. Gate 11 produces a “dark rye” made with ruby roasted rye malt, while Nashville Craft makes a wheated bourbon. Quite a few distilleries have leaned into moonshine. Even Company Distilling, which poached former Jack Daniel’s master distiller Jeff Arnett, is making a variety of non–Lincoln County Process whiskeys, including rye finished with cherry wood and bourbon finished with maple.
When Piersant started Chattanooga Whiskey, the Lincoln County Process wasn’t part of the plan. “It was never about how do we become the next great Tennessee whiskey? It was really about how do we become the next great whiskey?” he says. Chattanooga leaned into experimentation, especially with specialty malts, which eventually yielded a signature style of bourbon that the distillery calls Tennessee High Malt. “We love the fact that we are a part of the Tennessee whiskey story and we will become a part of Tennessee whiskey heritage, but it’s never been about making Tennessee whiskey. It’s always been about exploring this roasted, toasted, specialty malted version of bourbon,” Piersant adds.
But examples like Chattanooga throw into sharp relief a major issue: There’s whiskey made in Tennessee, and there’s Tennessee whiskey, and they are not necessarily the same thing. Tennessee whiskey, the style, was formalized by the legislature in 2013. The law dictates that a whiskey meet all the criteria for bourbon with the additional requirements of being made and aged in Tennessee, and undergoing the Lincoln County Process — filtering the new-make spirit through sugar maple charcoal before barreling.
Despite the very clear guidelines — and probably in part because of the surge in new whiskeys made in Tennessee in the last decade — even makers of traditional Tennessee whiskey admit that the moniker is opaque to many drinkers. “I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and I still talk to people every day that don’t know what it means,” Henley says. “They don’t know about that charcoal process and how that makes it different from bourbon or any other American whiskey. Especially overseas, people think of one brand when they think of American whiskey. They don’t even know what bourbon is. Tennessee whiskey has a long way to go as far as educating our consumers.”
It doesn’t help that there is no federal classification for Tennessee whiskey, which can make getting label approvals from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) a confusing process: Should a brand apply under the “whiskey” or “bourbon” classification? Uncle Nearest has been labeled as “Premium Whiskey” since its inception, but Weaver is currently engaging with the TTB to better highlight that the brand is straight bourbon that undergoes the Lincoln County Process. “We should be able to put ‘premium Tennessee whiskey’ on the front and to actually talk about the fact that Tennessee whiskey is straight bourbon whiskey on the back,” she said, noting that “globally it’s really important [because] overseas has enough bourbon. They want something different.”
Still, for many drinkers, what makes a whiskey made in Tennessee a Tennessee whiskey seems to be a non-issue. “Tennessee whiskey is a style of bourbon just like Tennessee High Malt is a style of bourbon,” Piersant says “The average consumer just isn’t overly concerned with those facts. People are really just looking for a good bourbon and a good whiskey.”
Regardless of whether drinkers understand the nuances, distillers of all stripes see a bright future for whiskey from Tennessee. Nearly every producer in the state is still in its infancy, but building on a foundation that’s already strong.
“When the community of whiskey distilling in a state is building a good reputation and puts out a good product, that’s more helpful than anything,” Piersant says. “I think it’s even caused bigger organizations like Brown-Forman to actually consider how to innovate. We are super proud when there’s good products that come out of Tennessee.”
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