Tim Piersant, owner and co-founder of Tennessee Stillhouse, stands with full barrels of 1816 Chattanooga Whiskey at the company's location on Market Street across from the Choo Choo Hotel.Location: Tennessee Stillhouse micro-distillery, 1439 Market St. across from the landmark Choo Choo hotel, open from Mon-Thurs, 11-9; Fri-Sat, 11-11 and Sun, 12-7. A new, 46,000-square-foot distillery due to open this spring in a former Chevrolet dealership at the corner of M.L. King Boulevard and Riverfront Parkway won't be open to the public, initially.
Products: Three brands of straight bourbon whiskey - 1816 Reserve, 1816 Cask and 1816 Single Barrel.
Claim to fame: The company says it operates the first legal distillery in Chattanooga in 100 years. In 2013, company co-founders pushed to overturn local and state laws banning Chattanooga whiskey production. The resulting state legislative bill hangs on The Stillhouse's tasting room wall.
Owner: The new, 46,000-square-foot distillery is owned by The Lamp Post Group, a Chattanooga venture incubator that provides both capital and mentorship to growing startups. Lamp Post Group is a minority partner in Tennessee Whiskey. Tim Piersant, the co-founder, president and CEO, is the largest shareholder in Tennessee Whiskey, which has a number of Chattanooga investors.
What's in the name: The 1816 name is a reference to the year that John Ross established a trading post on what would eventually become Chattanooga's downtown riverfront.
History: Chattanooga Whiskey's label was meant to look like turn-of-the-century advertising. Chattanooga was home to dozens of whiskey manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century, according to records in the pre-Prohibition distillery database Pre-Pro.com. The companies were housed primarily downtown and offered rye and corn whiskeys with colorful names such as Old Tennessee Queen, Mountain City Corn Shuck and Big Chief.