Bid To Overturn Tennessee Whiskey Law Fails

By Richard Thomas

The latest effort to overturn Tennessee’s 2013 state whiskey law failed on Tuesday, when the repeal measure was withdrawn from consideration in the State House.

The 2013 law was passed at the behest of Brown-Forman, the corporate parent of Jack Daniel’s, the world’s second-best selling whiskey and by far the largest distillery in Tennessee. The measure built on existing state laws governing whiskey production by officially defining “Tennessee whiskey” as de facto bourbon made with the additional step of the Lincoln County Process, or drip-filtration through sugar maple charcoal.

For decades, Tennessee hosted only two distilleries, Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel, both using a version of the Lincoln County Process. In recent years several micro-distilleries have sprouted up in the state, part of the larger craft whiskey boom in the U.S., and some of these do not use the Lincoln County Process and object to not being able to label their products using the specific term “Tennessee Whiskey.”

However, the main opponent of the 2013 law was Dickel’s parent corporation, Diageo. Also the owner of Jack Daniel’s main global competitor, Johnnie Walker, Diageo was widely seen to be opposing the law so as to benefit Walker, with Dickel serving only as a pawn. In American whiskey circles some speculate that Dickel Master Distiller John Lunn, who recently left the distillery to work at Popcorn Sutton, resigned over the matter.

A new and surprising figure in the Tennessee whiskey law tussle is Americans For Prosperity, the Tea Party lobbying group associated with Charles and David Koch, who have entered the fray in opposition to the law.

This failure of this effort to overturn the law marks the second failed bid to do so. Diageo had previously tried to repeal the measure last year. As with their previous failed effort, opponents of the 2013 law have sworn to try again in the next legislative session.