Drinks

No-frills institutions that set the bar high for cheap beer and good times

Should you awaken on New Year’s Day with a splitting headache, a strong drink is a surefire cure. We canvassed the South for some of the best hair-of-the-dog pours.

On a hot Nashville morning, Charlie and Andy Nelson walk through a distillery that is at once brand new and steeped in history. The gleaming copper still, tasting room, and retail shop are the...

Johnny Baker’s hillbilly accent is as authentic as the moonshine his family has been making for generations, and he uses it to marked effect as he entertains tourists at their Gatlinburg distillery. “We are making coooorn liquor—moonshine,” Baker says, stretching out the vowel to emphasize the appeal of a distillate with a shady, complicated past.

Founded in 2010, Cathead was the first legal distillery in Mississippi (the last state to repeal Prohibition). Owners Austin Evans and Richard Patrick distill Cathead Vodka six times and mix sweet grain corn into...

A determined mother moves to Asheville for her kids and births a new career as the distiller of Troy & Sons Platinum Whiskey.

Tour Richland Distilling Company, where Erik Vonk and his wife, Karin, have been cooking up their award-winning Richland Rum since 2011.

Michael Anderson, co-founder of recently opened Independent Distillery, has joined the ranks of beer brewers and spirit makers who dare to navigate the maze of laws, in order to launch a distillery. Why go through such pain? Because the man is a fan of whiskey.

Good news for the Westside: the build-out at Second Self Beer Company is on track to open mid-September. The forthcoming brewery by Jason Santamaria and Chris Doyle is tucked away on Logan Circle, in between Monday Night and Red Brick. The breweries are so close to each other that Second Self founders hint we might very well see a 5K race with three heady pit stops in the future. But for now, the focus is on completing construction. And brewing beer.