Tennessee’s H. Clark Distillery Releases First Bourbon

By Richard Thomas

Prohibition came early to Tennessee, with the statehouse there enacting a temperance measure in 1909, ten years before the U.S. 18th Amendment took prohibition nationwide. So, when H. Clark Distillery in Thompson’s Station dumped their first barrel of bourbon and bottled it, they released the first new whiskey seen in Williamson County in 106 years. The occasion was chosen to coincide with Repeal Day, marking the enactment of the 21st Amendment and the end of national Prohibition.

H. Clark Distillery is one of the micro-distilleries that have been sprouting up in the Volunteer State, alongside the state’s two legacy distilleries: the giant of Jack Daniel’s and the mid-sized, but still much, much bigger George Dickel. H. Clark’s facility, a 100 year old rural granary,  is relatively small, but almost as old as Tennessee’s prohibition act.

The distillery had a gin and a white whiskey out, and with the barrel dump they have approximately 250 bottles of bourbon to add to that. Although not directly billed as such, the small run is a de facto single barrel.