10 Minute Tour of Corsair Artisan Distillery

Several months ago I woke up one morning with a totally awesome idea…to visit and film all of the distilleries on the Tennessee Whiskey Trail in one whirlwind trip spanning 3 or 4 days. Awesome idea…turned out to be totally unworkable, as well. Over a few weeks time, I scaled back the ambitious undertaking, meaning to hit all of them in 4 or 5 “day trips” with a couple distilleries on each outing. It soon became obvious that that wouldn’t be very feasible, either.

Outside of the Marathon Motors Building where Corsair Distillery is based. Picture is from 2010.

But I knew I wanted to hit ever legal working distillery in the Volunteer State at some point and knew I had to start somewhere, so…I reasoned, “Let’s start in the state capital of Nashville and see where it goes from there.”

My first task was to get in touch with someone who would know people at these distilleries and pave the way to get in. I talked first to Joe Ledbetter, until recently with the Chattanooga Whiskey brand, and he recommended I talk to Joe Barnes, who runs the Tennessee Whiskey Trail website. So I got in contact with the second Joe. He liked my idea and asked how he could help. By  this time I wanted to focus on Nashville as the first stop so I asked him for contact info on a few likely targets. I tried contacting 3 of the Music City-area manufacturers, but the only one I heard back from in time for the video shoot was Corsair.

And it wasn’t unwelcome to hear from them, either, as I had toured their facility several years back and it would be nice to see how it had grown and changed in the meantime.

Corsair’s main copper still. Photo from 2010 visit.

I then hit upon the “gimmick” or “hook” for this series…10 Minute Tours on the Tennessee Whiskey Trail. It comes down to this: I want to showcase the variety of distilleries doing business in my home state, and I thoroughly enjoy taking distillery tours myself. BUT…I don’t want to bore anyone with overlong videos. Any web video that goes over 10 minutes in length is at risk of being mentally (or actually) turned off at some point. Make it short, make it fun, get out before anyone gets bored.

With that, I hope you enjoy our first installment in the 10 Minute Tours series.

I’m hoping to get at least a couple more videos in this series shot before the year is out, but with things as busy as they are…who knows? I have in my mind the site I want to visit next, but I can be persuaded otherwise. If you own or represent one of the working distilleries listed on the Tennessee Whiskey Trail and want us to visit you…drop me a line at [email protected] and I’ll see if we can prioritize a visit.