Ole Smoky Distillery Receives 2017 “Hot Brand” Award

April 18, 2018 by evebushman Leave a Comment

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (PRWEB) – Ole Smoky®, the world’s most awarded moonshine company, has been named a 2017 Impact Hot Brand by M. Shanken Communications, a leading publisher in the U.S. Wine & Spirits industry known for such magazines as Wine Spectator, Impact, Market Watch, and Cigar Aficionado.

“It is a huge honor to receive this award,” says Robert Hall, CEO of Ole Smoky. “We are all aiming to build a world class spirits brand, and this award is recognition of all of our efforts. We are proud of what we have accomplished to date, pleasing so many consumers with our great products, and will continue working for greater success in the future.”

The Hot Brand Award is given to both established and upcoming brands that have reached a minimum depletion number of 200,000 cases, and whose volume has grown at least 10% in each of the past three calendar years or at least 15% in 2017.

This award comes at a very exciting time for Ole Smoky. The company is not just growing its moonshine sales, but taking the brand to the next level with the late 2017 national launch of its whiskey product line. Mango Habanero is listed on menus at multiple on-premise locations, the demand for Salty Caramel Whiskey has far exceeded expectations, and Ole Smoky’s 5 year aged Straight Tennessee Bourbon Whiskey is among the highest quality product of its type in the market today.

Ole Smoky’s three distilleries in East Tennessee have been a source of competitive advantage to build awareness and trial of the company’s products, while educating consumers about the deep heritage and authenticity of the brand. Sales have been strongest in the states within a few hundred miles of these distilleries, but are now growing rapidly in many states further afield. This success has inspired the company to start building a 4th location in Nashville, which is targeted to open later in 2018, further fueling the growth of the brand.

“We are very excited to have our efforts in building such a strong brand recognized by receiving the 2017 Impact Award,” says Michael Bender, President of Wholesale at Ole Smoky. “Our numbers have been incredible these past few years. We are motivated to continue setting and reaching higher goals.”

Ole Smoky will receive their award at the Impact & Market Watch Hot Brand Awards Reception, held during the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) 75th Annual Convention & Exposition in Las Vegas on May 1, 2018.

For more information about Ole Smoky and a list of other awards the company has achieved visit http://www.olesmoky.com

About Ole Smoky® Distillery LLC:
Ole Smoky is the leading distiller of premium moonshine in the U.S. and the first federally licensed distillery in the history of East Tennessee. The company’s roots can be traced to the early settlers of the Smoky Mountains. In 2009, (when the law in Tennessee changed and suddenly, it was legal to make, distill and sell the infamous bootlegger’s hooch), a group of families decided to bring their artistry of superior moonshine making to the world at large.

Over 3.9 million people annually visit Ole Smoky’s 3 famed East Tennessee distilleries: Holler™, Barrelhouse™ and Barn™. The Holler™ see’s over 2 million visitors per year making it the most visited distillery in the world. In 2018, Ole Smoky will open a 4th location in Nashville.

Ole Smoky now retails globally and offers more than twenty creative flavors crafted from authentic family recipes. Ole Smoky can be found in grocery and liquor stores, as well as in on-premise establishments including some of the biggest music and sporting venues in the country.

For more information, please visit http://www.olesmoky.com and find them on social media @olesmoky.

Shine Responsibly®

Ole Smoky Distillery, Yee-Haw Brewing & Music City Roots Have Teamed up

January 8, 2018 by evebushman Leave a Comment

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (PRWEB) – Ole Smoky Distillery, the leading craft distiller of Moonshine and home of the world’s most visited distillery, announced today that they are expanding their East TN presence by joining forces with Yee Haw Brewing Company, one of Tennessee’s top craft breweries. In collaboration with Music City Roots, they will collectively open an entertainment complex in Nashville’s burgeoning area of SoBro. The venue, currently being called 6th & Peabody will feature a distillery, brewery, live music, bars, tasting rooms, beer & bottle shops and merchandise. Visitors will be able to enjoy cocktails by the glass, as well as purchase jars of moonshine and bottled beer for enjoyment at home. Doors are scheduled to open in the second half of 2018.

“We are all very excited about this new endeavor,” says Joe Baker, Owner of Yee-Haw Brewing Company and Founder of Ole Smoky Distillery. “By providing guests with the best of Tennessee music, beer and moonshine, in a comfortable setting, we are confident that our newest venue will do extremely well in Nashville.”

The announcement of the multidimensional property comes after years of planning the overall concept. Having a brewery and distillery under the same roof will give visitors a unique experience with something that appeals to every individual, which is what the companies always envisioned. On any given day, there will be at least six beers on tap, and ten moonshine flavors being poured.

Along with experiencing a unique drinking occasion, guests will also enjoy authentic, world–renowned musical performances. Music City Roots, will be curating the live music talent and entertainment for the venue. Music will be presented day and night with an intimate performance area in the tasting room, a full-production concert stage in the main hall, as well as a broadcast studio for WMOT Roots Radio 89.5 FM. In order to build anticipation for the new venue, Music City Roots will be hosting a “Roots on the Road” campaign where they will go to various venues in Nashville, performing and spreading the word about the new location.

“Music City Roots looks forward to continuing to export the diversity and quality of our musical culture to a national and international audience from the heart of Nashville. We are honored to expand our long-term relationship with the great folks at Yee Haw and Ole Smoky by opening what will be an iconic and authentic addition to Music City,” says executive producer Todd Mayo.

“The heart of this partnership is our shared goal to curate a world-class listening environment, and present the music with the utmost respect for the artists that create it. In addition to being a live venue, it will be fully equipped for HD video broadcast, state-of-the-art live audio recording and radio broadcast”, says executive producer John Walker.

Baker and team will be transforming a warehouse currently standing on a 12k square foot property located in SoBro, also known as the South Six District. Currently the area is surrounded by a number of apartment buildings and hotels in development, which means there will be a need for more entertainment facilities for these residents and guests to enjoy. SoBro is a short walk and easily accessible from the popular “Lower Broadway” strip, the Music City Convention Center, and Bridgestone Arena.

“It makes sense for Ole Smoky and Yee-Haw to team up and create a space where all of our fans can enjoy themselves outside of our East Tennessee home base,” says Robert Hall CEO of Ole Smoky. “Both brands have a strong presence in the state and by joining forces we can offer great entertainment and a wide variety of beverages to fit every taste.”

This facility will be Yee-Haw’s second location and Ole Smoky’s fourth location.

Details about the bottle shops and tasting room (including a full beer and moonshine list, hours, events, and more) will be available soon. For more information about Ole Smoky please visit http://www.olesmoky.com. For more information about Yee-Haw please visit http://www.yeehawbrewing.com. For more information about Music City Roots please visit http://www.musiccityroots.com.

About Yee-Haw Brewery Co:
Founded in 2015, Yee-Haw Brewing Co is a craft brewery and tap room located in a historic railroad depot built in the late 1800’s in Johnson City, TN. Yee-Haw quickly grew from a start up to one of the southeast’s fastest growing craft breweries. Best known for their World Beer Cup award-winning Dunkel, Yee-Haw Brewing’s reputation for high quality ales and lagers is built on their commitment to using only the finest ingredients.

Yee-Haw is an expression of exuberance, a celebration of life, and a commitment to adventure. They’re serious about making great beer and improving the lives of those around them. Whether it is their commitment to a local nature conservancy, reviving a local outdoor concert series, supporting local art programs, or helping a local bike club raise money to build new trails, Yee-Haw is part of that experience. Remember, you’ll say it when you drink it, and cheers to the good times.

About Music City Roots:
Founded in October of 2009, Music City Roots is a weekly live musical variety radio show hosted by Grammy winning “Mr Americana” artist, Jim Lauderdale. Streamed live every week online to a global audience and airing on over 25 radio stations, Music City Roots has aired nationally in 75% of the United States on public television. Roots was created to shine a light on the variety and diversity of American Music. Roots has hosted Grammy winning artists like Chris Stapleton , Sturgill Simpson, Emmylou Harris as well as iconic American acts like The Doobie Brothers and features a weekly emerging artist as well. A community of fan’s, bands and brands, Music City Roots hearkens back to the golden age of live radio utilizing traditional and present platforms of discovery: radio, television, and streaming both live and on demand.

About Ole Smoky Distillery LLC:
Ole Smoky is the leading distiller of premium moonshine in the U.S. and the first federally licensed distillery in the history of East Tennessee. The company’s roots can be traced to the early settlers of the Smoky Mountains. In 2009, the law in Tennessee changed and suddenly, it was legal to make, distill and sell the infamous bootlegger’s hooch. It was at that point that a group of families decided to bring their artistry of superior moonshine making to the world at large.

And the world welcomed it. Ole Smoky was named an Impact Hot Brand by M. Shanken Communications, a leading publisher in the U.S. wine & spirits industry. The Hot Brand Award is given to both established and upcoming brands that achieve double-digit growth in each of the past three years, with a minimum of 200,000 cases. Additionally, people from all over the world visit the famed Gatlinburg Distillery, The Holler™, to see and experience how Ole Smoky moonshine is made. Since it’s opening in July of 2010, Ole Smoky Distillers have opened two more locations with The Barn™ in 2013 and the Barrelhouse™ in 2015, which produces the company’s new whiskey line that just launched nationally in Fall 2017. 2018 will mark the opening of the company’s fourth distillery in Tennessee.

Ole Smoky now retails globally and offers more than twenty creative flavors crafted from authentic family recipes. And while Ole Smoky has long been enjoyed on the porch from the jar or the jug, Ole Smoky now finds itself mixed in handcrafted cocktails of the finest order in establishments across the U.S. including at some of the biggest music and sporting venues in the country.

For more information, please visit http://www.olesmoky.com and find them on social media @olesmoky.

Shine Responsibly®

New Tennessee Wine Festival Announced for May

February 23, 2017 by evebushman Leave a Comment

Oak Ridge, Tennessee – The first-ever Nine Lakes Wine Festival will be held May 19-20, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and is focused on quality, highlighting the wine trails and award-winning wines of Tennessee.

15380313_177628639375434_1612725433023545890_n The outdoor Grand Tasting at the festival is Saturday, May 20, 1 to 6 p.m., and features 100 Tennessee wines and ciders from 20 wineries, with live music and food, at the beautiful waterfront setting of Melton Lake Park peninsula in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Tickets for the Grand Tasting May 20, as well as a Winemakers Dinner May 19, are on sale now at the festival’s website.

The festival is just 30 minutes from downtown Knoxville, and bears the name “Nine Lakes” from the nine TVA-made lakes in the greater Knoxville region.

“The beauty of our waterfront Melton Lake Park is perfect for a wine festival,” said Marc DeRose, president of Explore Oak Ridge, the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau.

“Melton Lake is one of the most beautiful of the nine lakes in this area. As many people know, its glassy waters are perfect for world-class rowing events. In fact, we invite the public to watch the Dogwood Master’s Classic Regatta in the morning of May 20, and then enjoy Nine Lakes Wine Festival in the afternoon. We hope everyone enjoys our waterfront and the stunning beauty it offers.”

Nine Lakes Wine Festival will feature only wineries that participate in a wine trail. They will be grouped by trail, for a seamless tasting experience.

“We are highlighting wine trails because they set quality and professional standards for their members,” explained James R. Riddle, president of the Appalachian Region Wine Producers Association, one of the sponsors of the festival.

“When we set high standards and support one another in wine tourism, then the whole Tennessee wine industry benefits,” said Riddle. “We want to show off the hard work our talented winemakers are doing in the state, and expose more people to award-winning Tennessee wines.”

The Winemakers Dinner on Friday, May 19 features gold- and silver-award winning wines, paired with a gourmet dinner, at Calhoun’s Event Center, Oak Ridge.

“Nine Lakes Wine Festival is an opportunity for the public to taste award-winning Tennessee wines,” said Riddle. “Very often we find that people have never tried a Tennessee wine. When they do, they are often amazed at how that wine compares with the best they’ve ever had.”

Five wine trails will be represented at the festival: Great Valley Wine Trail, Rocky Top Wine Trail, Upper Cumberland Wine Trail, the new Foothills Wine & Cider Trail, and the new Appalachian High Country Wine Trail.

“We are excited that craft cider, a new industry in Tennessee, is going to be featured by two wineries at the festival,” said Riddle. “Hard apple cider has a rich Appalachian history and Nine Lakes Wine Festival is glad to be part of the return of this Tennessee tradition.”

Plenty of free parking is available at the festival. For more information, please visit the festival website.

Rural East Tennessee winemakers toast USDA grants for growth and wine tourism

January 8, 2017 by evebushman Leave a Comment

An East Tennessee winemakers association has been awarded three USDA grants, to expand the rural wine industry in the region.

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Maynardville, East Tennessee (PRWEB) – Rural East Tennessee winemakers are raising a glass to growth in their industry, having been recently awarded three major U.S. Department of Agriculture grants to boost the state’s small but growing wine and grape industry.

The Appalachian Region Wine Producers Association (ARWPA) has been awarded a two-year, $25,000 Specialty Crop Block Grant and a three-year, $250,000 Value-Added Producers Grant. One of its member wineries has also received a $49,500 VAPG grant to make sparkling wines, the USDA announced this week.

“East Tennessee is a wonderful place to grow grapes. Our hills and valleys are perfect for many varietals, and our winemakers are talented and motivated to make award-winning wines,” said James R. Riddle, founder of ARWPA. “These grants will help put Tennessee on the wine lover’s map.”

More than a century ago, in the late 1800s, vineyards were flourishing in Tennessee, with more than 1,200 acres in grape production. However, the Prohibition years destroyed the industry in Tennessee. Today there are only 905 acres of grape production in the state, well behind neighboring states Virginia (4,371 acres) and North Carolina (3,392 acres), according to U.S. Census of Agriculture.

“The Tennessee grape and wine industry is experiencing a Renaissance,” said Riddle. “Recent pro-growth legislation and these two grants will be key to keeping our momentum going.”

The first project ARWPA will tackle is establishing an American Viticultural Area, or AVA. An AVA is a federally-recognized growing region, with labeling rights that go with it. Wine made from grapes grown in an AVA can carry the label of the region (think Napa Valley or Sonoma County, the most well-known AVAs).

“It has been said that the geography of America wine can be summed up in three letters: AVA,” explained Riddle. “An AVA establishes the place of origin for a wine. When a winemaker makes a wine using one AVA’s grapes, that wine has a particular ‘terroir,’ or sense of place, which is so important in the industry.”

ARWPA plans to use the Specialty Crop Block Grant to hire soil and legal experts to establish the first single-state AVA in East Tennessee. There are currently two other AVAs in Tennessee, but they include counties in other states as well.

The Value-Added Producers Grant will be used to establish new opportunities for winemakers in East Tennessee, the first of which is the Nine Lakes Wine Festival, May 19-20, 2017.

The two-day festival will feature a Winemakers Dinner for gold medal wines, a Grand Tasting with several East Tennessee wine trails, live music, food, and winemaker seminars. The event will be on beautiful Melton Lake Park, just 30 minutes from downtown Knoxville, home to the International Biscuit Festival, held the same weekend.

“The local food movement is so strong in Knoxville,” said Riddle, “and locally made wines are part of that. We hope everyone will eat some wonderful biscuits, and then head out to Melton Lake to sample award-winning Tennessee wines.”

The Nine Lakes region of East Tennessee is named for the nine TVA-made lakes of the 1930s and 1940s, constructed to control flooding and provide power to rural East Tennessee. Today those lakes offer residents and tourists thousands of venues for outdoor sports, boating and fishing.

The Nine Lakes region of East Tennessee is currently home to two wine trails, with a third under development. It has more wineries than any other area of the state. See http://www.GreatValleyWineTrail.com and http://www.RockyTopWineries.com.

These three USDA grants come on the heels of other favorable wine news in Tennessee.

In July 2016, most grocery stores were allowed to carry wine for the first time. In March 2016, Governor Bill Haslam signed into law a ruling that allows winemakers to make hard cider for the first time.

And, the most recent data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the Tennessee wine and grape industry continues to show strong growth. Direct “covered” or hired jobs in the Tennessee winery industry has grown to 435 workers in the first quarter of 2016, which is an increase of over 20 percent from the same time last year. The number of establishments with hired workers has seen a similar increase. Discussions with industry officials and an analysis of bonded winery data provided by the U.S. Tobacco, Firearms and Alcohol indicates that the state now has 72 bonded wineries. Accounting for self-employment (which are not included in these values), Tennessee wineries currently provide well over 500 jobs.