Which whiskeys are made in Tennessee?

For most of the 20th century the answer was two names: Jack Daniel's and George Dickel. The list has changed more in the last fifteen years than in the previous hundred. Uncle Nearest, Nelson's Green Brier, Chattanooga Whiskey, Benjamin Prichard's, and roughly a dozen smaller distilleries now fill in around the giants. One catch matters before the list: not every whiskey made in Tennessee is legally "Tennessee whiskey." The category has three specific requirements, and a fair amount of what comes out of the state's distilleries meets only two. One producer on this list is exempted from one of those requirements by name.

Jack Daniel's (Lynchburg)

Jack Daniel's is the defining Tennessee whiskey and the best-selling American whiskey in the world. Distilled in Lynchburg and owned by Brown-Forman, the brand is built around Old No. 7, the black-label bottle most readers already know by sight. The core range extends beyond that: Gentleman Jack (which is filtered through sugar-maple charcoal a second time after aging), Single Barrel, the bottled-in-bond releases, and a Tennessee rye.

What makes Jack Daniel's structurally important is the Lincoln County Process, the sugar-maple charcoal mellowing step that happens before barreling. Jack's use of that step is essentially what defined the template every other producer on this list either follows or has to explain their way around.

George Dickel (Cascade Hollow, Tullahoma)

George Dickel is the other historic producer and, for most of the 20th century, the only serious-scale rival to Jack Daniel's. The whiskey is made at Cascade Hollow near Tullahoma, about seventy miles southeast of Nashville.

Two things set Dickel apart. First, the brand spells it "whisky" in the Scottish style, without the "e." That's a deliberate nod to the founder's claim that his whiskey was as good as any Scotch. Second, Dickel chills its whiskey before running it through the Lincoln County Process, where Jack Daniel's filters at room temperature. It's a small twist, but Dickel argues the cold slows the flow through the charcoal and pulls out more of the harsher compounds. Whether that produces a meaningfully different spirit is debated, but it's a real procedural difference, not a marketing one.

Uncle Nearest (Shelbyville)

Uncle Nearest is the breakout producer of the post-2010 craft wave and now one of the fastest-growing American whiskey brands of any category. It's distilled and aged in Shelbyville, uses the Lincoln County Process, and meets the full legal definition of Tennessee whiskey.

The brand is named for Nathan "Nearest" Green, the enslaved and later freed Tennessee distiller who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. That history is not a branding flourish attached to a generic product: Green's role was documented for over a century before his name went on a bottle, and Uncle Nearest was founded explicitly to honor him. It is also the first major Black-founded premium American whiskey brand, which matters both culturally and as a data point about how narrow the category's ownership had been before.

Nelson's Green Brier Distillery (Nashville)

A revived pre-Prohibition family brand, restarted in Nashville in the 2010s by two brothers who are direct descendants of the original founder, Charles Nelson. The 19th-century Nelson's Green Brier was, at one point, the largest whiskey distillery in the country by volume. Prohibition shut it down, and it stayed closed for nearly a century before the family brought it back.

The current distillery produces Belle Meade Bourbon and Nelson's Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey, among other releases. It's a clean example of what you could call the heritage revival subtype of the Tennessee craft scene: operations rebuilt around a pre-Prohibition lineage rather than founded from scratch.

Chattanooga Whiskey (Chattanooga)

Chattanooga Whiskey is the largest independent urban craft distillery in Tennessee and the most technically adventurous of the state's craft producers. It's best known for pioneering what it calls the Tennessee High Malt style, which uses mash bills with unusually high proportions of specialty malted grains (caramel malt, chocolate malt, honey malt) alongside the expected corn.

Not all of Chattanooga's whiskeys are legally Tennessee whiskey. Some releases skip the Lincoln County Process, and some use mash bills that don't meet the bourbon standard of identity that Tennessee whiskey is built on top of. The distillery makes both, and the label usually makes the distinction clear if you read carefully.

Benjamin Prichard's (Kelso)

A small distillery in Kelso, in southern Tennessee. Prichard's gets its own section for one specific reason: it is the only legal Tennessee whiskey producer that does not use the Lincoln County Process.

When Tennessee codified the definition of Tennessee whiskey into state law in 2013, the law required sugar-maple charcoal filtration before barreling. Prichard's had been distilling in the state for years without that step, and rather than force the company to change its process, the legislature grandfathered Prichard's in as the sole exemption. So Prichard's Tennessee Whiskey meets the legal definition of Tennessee whiskey while being the one bottle on a shelf of them that skips charcoal mellowing entirely. Every other producer in this article uses the Lincoln County Process.

Other notable Tennessee distilleries

Beyond the producers that warrant their own section, a longer list of active Tennessee distilleries fills out the craft tier. One line each:

• Corsair Artisan (Nashville). An experimental operation working across many spirit categories, better known for unusual mash bills and smoked grains than for conventional Tennessee whiskey.
• Sugarlands Distilling (Gatlinburg). Best known for a large line of flavored moonshines. Also produces aged whiskey under the Roaming Man label.
• Old Dominick (Memphis). The only craft distillery operating in Memphis, producing bourbon and a Tennessee whiskey.
• Sweetens Cove (South Pittsburg). Premium positioning, with blends overseen by Marianne Eaves, formerly of Castle & Key. The distillery is better known for blended and sourced product than for distilling at scale.
• Davidson Reserve (Nashville). Made by Pennington Distilling, one of the earliest of the modern Nashville craft operations.
• Company Distilling (Alcoa and Lynchburg). Founded by former Jack Daniel's master distiller Jeff Arnett, with two locations in East and Middle Tennessee.
• Blue Note (Memphis). Primarily sourced whiskey finished and bottled in Memphis, named for the city's musical history.
• Big Machine Distillery (Lynnville). Home of Clayton James Tennessee Whiskey, part of a country-music-adjacent beverage operation.

This list is current as of the mid-2020s and the Tennessee craft scene is still actively adding and losing producers, so treat any specific roster as a snapshot rather than a permanent map.

Made in Tennessee, but not "Tennessee whiskey"

The state produces a fair amount of whiskey and whiskey-adjacent spirit that is not legally Tennessee whiskey. This is the distinction most ranked-list articles gloss over.

Tennessee state law, codified in 2013, defines Tennessee whiskey as a spirit that meets three requirements:

1. It meets the federal standard of identity for bourbon (at least 51% corn in the mash bill, aged in new charred oak, distilled to no more than 160 proof, entered into the barrel at no more than 125 proof).
2. It is produced in the state of Tennessee.
3. It is filtered through sugar-maple charcoal before being put into the barrel.

Anything made in Tennessee that skips one of those pillars is made in Tennessee but is not legally Tennessee whiskey. That includes most moonshine (Ole Smoky's flagship line, much of Sugarlands', and Corsair's unaged releases all fall outside the category, usually because they aren't aged), rye whiskeys that don't use the Lincoln County Process, and Chattanooga's experimental malt-forward releases that use mash bills too low in corn to qualify as bourbon. Prichard's, as covered above, is the one permitted exception to the charcoal-filtration requirement.

The distinction matters because a shelf labeled "Tennessee whiskey" at a liquor store is often broader than the legal category. Some of what sits there is legally Tennessee whiskey; some is simply whiskey distilled in Tennessee.

How the Tennessee whiskey landscape is organized today

For a newcomer trying to place the category, the honest map looks like this: two long-dominant giants (Jack Daniel's at very large scale and George Dickel in a distant second), one legal outlier (Prichard's, the one producer exempted from the Lincoln County Process), and a growing craft tier of roughly a dozen smaller distilleries that have mostly emerged since 2010.

The craft tier is itself split. Uncle Nearest sits at the high end of its scale range and is big enough that it barely belongs in the "craft" bucket anymore. A cluster of Nashville and Chattanooga urban distilleries forms the middle: Nelson's Green Brier, Chattanooga Whiskey, Corsair, Pennington. A longer tail of small operations fills out the rest.

The honest answer to which whiskeys are made in Tennessee has changed more in the last fifteen years than in the previous hundred. For most of the 20th century it was Jack Daniel's, George Dickel, and a rounding error. The list a newcomer encounters today is substantially longer, and the list a newcomer will encounter ten years from now will almost certainly be different again.