8 Must-Visit Nashville Distilleries to Tour and Taste

Pennington Distilling Co.

Located in Nashville’s Nations neighborhood, Pennington Distilling Co. is a grain-to-glass distillery making aged and clear spirits along with other products.

We loved their Davidson Reserve Tennessee Whiskey, which is aged a minimum of four years. It’s the first locally distilled small batch Tennessee whiskey since Prohibition, a point of pride in a town that takes its whiskey very seriously. Try it alongside their flagship brand, Whisper Creek Tennessee Sipping Cream, a cream liqueur that combines the characteristics of whiskey with caramel and pecan favors. Think Bailey’s meets Jack Daniel’s.

Pennington also produces two vodka lines—Pickers Vodka and Walton’s Vodka. Pickers is distilled 11 times and comes in original and several flavors infused with actual fruit. Walton’s Finest Vodka is made with 100% Tennessee red winter wheat and cut with Tennessee limestone water.

Tours and tastings at Pennington Distilling Co. are offered every day except Monday.

Nashville Craft Distillery

Nashville Craft Distillery is a laid-back place to sample some familiar spirits and try a few you may not have had before. If you take a tour, have a tasting, or stop in for a cocktail, the staff will tell you everything you want to know about the products, which is great for people like me who want to know all the details.

Everything at Nashville Craft Distillery is made from scratch. Whether they’re made from sorghum, honey, or grain, the small-batch spirits all start in-house with a focus on local and regional ingredients.

Naked Biscuit and Golden Biscuit (the barrel-aged version of Naked) are smooth sorghum spirits that you can try straight or in a cocktail. The gin and whiskey offerings are also excellent. My favorite product was the spiced honey liqueur, which tastes just like it sounds with a hint of sweetness and the flavors of fall.

Leiper’s Fork Distillery

A visit to Leiper’s Fork feels like a step back in time to the late 1800s—1897, to be specific. That’s when the Bottled-in-Bond Act was passed, which set strict standards that assured consumers that their whiskey was pure. Leiper’s Fork’s Bottled in Bond products are handmade and small batch, which is a badge of honor for them. They even use corn grown on the owner’s farm.

A tour of their facility in Franklin takes visitors through the production and unique process. You also get to see their 500-gallon, custom-built Scottish pot still. The highlight of the tour is the tasting that takes place in a 200-year-old cabin (can you tell history and authenticity are themes here?) We tried three types—bourbon, rye, and Tennessee whiskey. Leiper’s Fork uses a sweet mash fermentation process that imparts a mellow character, which is evident in the tasting.

Check out their special events that range from wine pairing dinners and concerts to cigar nights and haunted tours.

Jack Daniel’s Distillery

If you’re looking to venture a little farther, Lynchburg, Tennessee, is only about 90 minutes from Nashville. This tiny, dry town is the home of the top-selling American whiskey in the world—Jack Daniel’s. Every year, Lynchburg attracts over 300,000 visitors looking to see how Tennessee whiskey is made, making the distillery one of the top attractions in Tennessee.

At the Jack Daniel’s distillery, visitors can see how craftsmanship and attention to detail have built a fine brand and drinks that people around the world swear by. A distillery tour here is also a walk through the 158-year history of Jack Daniel—the man and his eponymous products.

On a tour, you’ll see the grain, the distillation process, and the 10-foot-tall stacks of sugar maple charcoal that help set Jack Daniel’s apart. All this is before the white whiskey gets its color and flavor from handcrafted toasted oak barrels built on-site.

There are several different tour options, and we chose the one that includes a tasting of the five core Jack Daniel’s products, including the Tennessee Whiskey, Tennessee Honey, and Gentleman Jack. It’s an informative and entertaining tour even if you’re not a big whiskey drinker–we both came away as fans.

Cascade Hollow Distilling Co.

Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. is probably more familiar to most people as the makers of George Dickel Tennessee Whisky. Despite the enormous popularity of their products, a visit here doesn’t feel like a visit to a large corporation. Instead, it feels like a country cabin in the Tennessee hills. There is no cell reception or traffic—just great whiskey.  

Just over an hour from Nashville, a tour at Cascade Hollow traces the story of George Dickel, a German immigrant who became a successful merchant and ultimately one of the top whiskey makers in the US. You’ll learn how his wife Augusta helped the company prosper after George died and the unique way it kept going despite Prohibition.

Cascade Hollow prides itself on its products that are “handmade the hard way”—filtered with sugar maple charcoal that is burned and transported by hand in the hollow. You’ll learn about the process and see the fermentation and distilling as it happens at one of the top distilleries in Tennessee.

The hour-long tour ends with a tasting of four whiskies ranging from George Dickel No. 1—an unaged white corn whisky—to their high-end George Dickel Barrel Select, which is aged for at least 10 years. If you’re feeling brave, you can also try the variety aged in Tabasco barrels for a bit of a kick.

We were the guests of Jack Daniel’s. All opinions of the flavorful and barrel-aged are our own.