Short Mountain Distillery: celebrating a year of success

single bottle barrels

Today marks the one year anniversary of Short Mountain Distillery opening its doors to the public and three years since the hard work began to make this day possible.

It was an exciting three years serving an extraordinary team as Chief Operating Officer during this time. I could not have written the business plan or built a distillery around making moonshine without the help of Cannon County voters in 2010. Building a heritage brand image around local moonshine culture would have never been a reality beyond the law change without the commitment and support of Billy Kaufman and his brothers Ben and David.

I recently left the distillery in February to pursue a project I hope helps save the planet, but I thought it was important to take this opportunity to highlight some of the first year successes we achieved as a team. The captioned slideshow below really helps tell this story using hundreds of photos I took. Here’s to many more years of making our whiskey heritage shine to the world from Woodbury, Tennessee!

Short Mountain Distillery’s first year by the numbers:

  • we created several local jobs and saw over 15,000 visitors at the distillery in Cannon County
  • we launched two products: Short Mountain Shine and Short Mountain Apple Pie
  • we sold over 2,500 cases of moonshine now available in stores across the state of Tennessee
  • Short Mountain Shine (105 proof authentic Tennessee Moonshine) won the Gold Medal in the International Review of Spirits Award from the Beverage Testing Institute
  • we appeared in over 100 media pieces, including a three-part Discovery Channel mini-series How Booze Built America
  • we surpassed every industry consultant’s benchmark for success and helped ignite an American moonshine revival
  1. March 23rd, 2013 at 12:10 | #1

    Christian, you have certainly been a part of history in Cannon County, Tennessee, and beyond. I followed your progress on Facebook for a couple of years, visited the distillery for the first time about two months ago, then brought about 20 other folks with my outdoor club there after a day of hiking. What you guys have done and are doing there is magic (and I don’t mean creating spirits). Moonshiners are part of the heritage of Tennessee and now that we can do it legally, the stories can be shared with generations to come. Short Mountain, keep up the good work, and Christian, I wish you luck in your new venture.

  2. Christian Grantham
    March 23rd, 2013 at 12:50 | #2

    Kelly, I’m so glad you see and appreciate that magic. I love sharing these rich stories of our heritage and history and hope I’ve done my part to create a place where a true American folk craft can be shared with future generations.

    I hope you enjoy following the next project at Half Hill Farm! I’m going to need some help from as many people as I can very soon on a renewable energy project that I hope will educate rural farmers and consumers about their choices while helping to save the planet.

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