The Tennessee Distillers Guild was officially formed in February 2014 with 13 members. Its three main goals were to responsibly promote Tennessee spirits, advocate for the industry at the local, state and federal levels, and create a network for distillers to connect with and support each other, says Jill Talbert, the guild’s lobbyist.

“Other key features of the guild include an associate member program to establish partnerships and generate revenue as well as a code of conduct to protect the guild’s reputation and ensure all distilleries operate in an honest, legal and ethical manner,” Talbert says.

The guild has gotten a lot done in less than 10 years. Here’s an abbreviated list of its accomplishments. More information can be found at https://tndistillersguild.org.

• 2014 & 2015: Definition of Tennessee Whiskey: The guild successfully advocated to preserve the definition of Tennessee whiskey during two years of focused efforts to repeal it from the Tennessee Code.

• 2016: Passed legislation governing distillery operations, effective April 27, 2016.

• 2017: Launched the Tennessee Whiskey Trail in June. Successfully promoted legislation to allow for cocktail sales in Tennessee distilleries.

• 2018: Successfully fought intense efforts to tax all barrels aging whiskey in Tennessee and passed legislation to disallow such taxation. If this legislation hadn’t passed, all the county assessors were prepared to tax aging barrels as personal property.

• 2019: Promoted legislation to remove the sunset on the independent trustee restaurant statute. The statute contained a sunset of July 1, 2019, meaning that the statute would be automatically removed from the code and therefore no longer provide a mechanism for a restaurant to exist in a distillery.

•Successfully promoted legislation to allow for distilleries to open their retail shops at the same times as retail package stores.

• 2020: Promoted transfer legislation that allowed for whiskey created at one location to be sampled as part of customer-facing operations at another location owned by the same licensee, as well as consumer tastings at retail package stores legislation.

• Supported creation of May 21 as International Tennessee Whiskey Day.

• Supported a resolution recognizing the important contributions of Tennessee distillers who pivoted their business models to manufacture hand sanitizer during the pandemic.

• 2022: Supported passage of Alternating Proprietorship Agreement legislation, which aligns Tennessee law with the federal Craft Beverage Modernization Act. Under this legislation, a Tennessee distillery can share or lease to another Tennessee distillery license holder their equipment to manufacture alcohol and take advantage of federal tax savings afforded under this federal act.

-- Joe Morris