When Tim Piersant and his former co-founder decided to create a distillery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, they knew there was going to be one specific hurdle to overcome. Prohibition laws made distilling illegal in Hamilton County, and while starting in a neighboring county was an option it wasn't the dream of bringing whiskey back to Chattanooga. 

Chattanooga Whiskey was born from a Facebook post in 2011. “Would you Drink Chattanooga Whiskey?” They received a resounding "Yes" so they got to work. 

With the fight to change the century-old laws on the horizon, they needed to start selling whiskey. The company turned to Lawrenceburg Distillers of Indiana to source its first releases, 1816 Reserve and Cask, by January 2012 while making it clear that this whiskey wasn't from Chattanooga. 

Tim says they wanted to be as transparent as possible, what they were releasing wasn't from Chattanooga,  instead, the goal is to bring it to Chattanooga and make it possible to operate a distillery in their home city. 

That's where the Vote Whiskey campaign was born. After stalling several times and facing opposition from other distilleries in Tennessee, the "Whiskey Bill" eventually passed in 2014 making it legal for Chattanooga Whiskey to distill its own product. 

With the help of their new master distiller Grant McCracken, Chattanooga Whiskey began its road to release the first bottle of its own juice, a high malt bourbon. In 2017 it hit shelves in the experimental distillery and in late 2019 evolved into being its flagship releases, Chattanooga Whiskey 91 and Chattanooga Whiskey Cask 111.