Pitmaster Carey Bringle owns the restaurant Peg Leg Porker and its namesake Tennessee bourbon, which launched in 2015. The restaurant is close to Nashville’s Music Row.
Tennessee’s capital metropolis of Nashville boasts a full of life craft whiskey scene, robustly supported by its acclaimed music, barbecue, and bar venues. On the fringe of the town’s Watkins Park neighborhood is Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier, housed within the former Marathon Car manufacturing facility. Right here, previous meets current: The Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier title first appeared again in 1870, when Charles Nelson started distilling whiskey within the city of Greenbrier, 25 miles north of Nashville. Nelson’s distillery shut down in 1909, and at present his descendants Andy and Charlie are bringing again the household enterprise, opening the trendy iteration of Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier in 2009 and making whiskey in-house since 2014.
Whereas ready for its whiskey to age, the corporate has launched sourced Indiana bourbon beneath the Belle Meade title. The revived Inexperienced Brier label, which debuted in 2017, blends 75% in-house pot nonetheless whiskey and 25% contracted column nonetheless whiskey, with the last word aim being of constructing Inexperienced Brier totally in-house over the subsequent a number of years. Whereas charcoal filtering is extra intensely built-in at George and Jack, the Nelsons go for a mellower strategy. “We’re not too aggressive with the charcoal filtration, we put the whiskey via a barrel stuffed with sugar maple charcoal that’s in decent-sized chunks—however we’re nonetheless experimenting with it, even when none of these experiments have hit [shelves] fairly but,” he says. Nelson provides that the distillery is enjoying round with totally different grains too, like heirloom varieties native to Tennessee.
Charlie and Andy Nelson of Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier Distillery. The brothers opened the trendy iteration of their household enterprise in 2009.
A couple of minutes’ stroll from Nelson’s Inexperienced Brier is Corsair, the pioneering craft distiller that opened in 2010 and has since garnered a popularity for its idiosyncratic strategy to whiskey making. Not like lots of its contemporaries, the distillery has steered away from bourbon manufacturing so far, focusing as an alternative on American single malt and malted rye. What’s a producer to do when it goes towards the grain—actually? “We’re identified for doing issues somewhat in another way, and naturally our Triple Smoke is a single malt, which is fairly removed from the usual corn-based Lincoln County Course of Tennessee whiskey,” says Corsair COO Tyler Crowell. “However our proprietor Darek Bell is from Nashville, I’m from Nashville, and we’re happy with our house and we need to showcase that—that’s our focus, placing spins on custom and increasing the notions of what [whiskey from Tennessee] might be.”
Nearer to Nashville’s Music Row, barbecue legend Carey Bringle (pitmaster of award-winning restaurant Peg Leg Porker) is understood amongst whiskey lovers for his Peg Leg Porker Tennessee bourbon, which launched in 2015 and has developed a fan following for his whiskeys, just like the 12 12 months outdated straight bourbon (which scored 91 factors with our tasting panel) and eight 12 months outdated straight bourbon (which scored 90). Peg Leg Porker makes use of sourced whiskey, however Pringle has put his personal distinct contact on the charcoal mellowing course of. “I burn down hickory charcoal, and after we de-barrel the bourbon, we run it via the hickory charcoal to filter and end it on the tail finish of manufacturing, giving the whiskey our signature taste,” he explains.
Musician Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door whiskey hopes to name Nashville’s Sobro neighborhood house sooner or later. Plans to transform an outdated church right into a distillery expertise have been within the making, although grasp blender Ryan Perry notes that there’s not but a particular opening date. Finally, nonetheless, he expects the area can be a beacon for the local people, artists, and whiskey fanatics alike, the place extra of the model’s experimental and modern whiskeys might be showcased usually. Heaven’s Door at present sources all of its whiskey, and whereas it can by no means be a solely Tennessee whiskey, Tennessee whiskeys made on the Nashville area can be a focus sooner or later.
