Tennessee whiskey outlier operates out of old schoolhouse

When is a Tennessee whiskey without charcoal mellowing a Tennessee whiskey? When it’s made by Phil Prichard.

Prichard’s, the only distillery in Lincoln County, doesn’t use the Lincoln County Process. That’s the charcoal filtering that, for all the other distilleries in the state, is legally required to call a bourbon a Tennessee whiskey.

But Prichard is a bit of a maverick. If you don’t realize that, he’ll tell you himself.

There were only two distilleries in the state: Jack Daniel's and George Dickel — until Prichard opened shop in 1997.

Past, present and future: Tennessee whiskey industry old and giant — but also new and fledgling

Prichard was a Memphian, Vietnam veteran, Norwegian horse breeder, car collector and photographer who was sick of his day job as a dental technician and got the idea to make rum from sorghum table syrup. No one was going into the whiskey business — the spirit was out of style.

He found a book on how to build a still. “Nobody ever told me you couldn’t make it on the kitchen stove,” he said.

So he nicked his wife’s canning pot and made a batch, propping the condenser on the ironing board and dripping the distillate into a bowl in the kitchen sink. “Whoo, that’s good,” his wife said.

From then, Prichard’s rum snowballed. He ran into a friend at his 40-year high school reunion who wholesaled liquor. His friends invested. “$5,000 would buy you 1,000 shares,” he said.

At that time, a county had to hold a referendum to open a distillery. Lincoln County had passed a vote in the 1970s, but nothing opened.

So Prichard packed up and moved. He and his wife bought a 20-acre farm with a 200-year-old farmhouse. “It was more fun than you could believe,” he said.

He set up his stills in the former cafeteria of a schoolhouse the county used for dances. When he expanded into an office, “They had enough money to hire the band every week!”

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Eventually he bought the entire schoolhouse. The disco ball still hangs in the gym.

A few years in, trends changed. “Our rums have won awards literally from here to London. But rum, it’s not as popular as whiskey,” he said.

“My fifth-generation grandfather Benjamin owned a distillery in Lincoln County” in the 1790s, he said. “We tried to emulate what he did.”

That meant a white-corn mash, not yellow; a pot still; and no charcoal filtration.

When the movement to define Tennessee whiskey as charcoal-filtered bubbled up, “I said no! I’ve been making Tennessee whiskey for 10 years now,” he said. “I had no allies.”

With a lobbyist, Prichard began walking the halls of the Tennessee legislature. “We’re using techniques and processes used by Benjamin Prichard back in the 1700s,” he told them. What could be more traditional Tennessee than that?

Someone told him he could filter quickly through just a bit of charcoal to meet the rules with no change in taste, he said. In that case, why bother?

In the end, the lawmakers grandfathered in Prichard’s fifth-generation grandfather.

What does the future hold for Prichard’s Distillery?

The company makes 22 products, 15,000 to 20,000 cases per year total, with six employees, including him and his wife.

Prichard’s most popular product is Sweet Lucy, an orange elixir with “enough sugar to send a diabetic to heaven,” Prichard said, that’s popular with duck hunters due to its warming qualities. A new edition comes in a bag for your shells.

But it’s been a tough few years. COVID decimated his sales staffing. The distillery’s second location got sold. The second set of dusty copper stills is up for sale. “We’ve pulled our horns in,” he said.

He’d love to make aquavit, but where’s the market? Already his wholesaler won’t carry everything he makes, he said.

Prichard is 83 and down to just one Norwegian horse.

When pressed, Prichard said he might sell if the right person came around. Might.

“The next big event in your life after you retire is called death. The way to avoid death is to not retire,” he said.

Danielle Dreilinger is an American South storytelling reporter and the author of the book “The Secret History of Home Economics.” You can reach her at ddreilinger@gannett.com or 919/236-3141.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Prichard's Distillery: Tennessee whiskey from former schoolhouse