Short Mountain Distillery, Tennessee, United States

5Greg C 5:00 PM Feb 1, 2020

Wonderful Time in Middle TN
My wife, my sister and I visited Short Mountain Distillery on a chilly Saturday in early February. We were greeted by Shane who gave us a very interesting tour of the original building and still, then proceeding to the new facility with the modern still, oak barrels and bottling machine. He discussed the process of making moonshine as well as the history; including the origin of the term "moonshine", the impact of Prohibition and other interesting facts. We then walked to the restaurant where an interesting gentleman named Foster gave us a tasting of their products and guided us through the making of "moonjitos", "shinearitas" and an apple-ginger flavored concoction . All of these were delicious and his presentation was outstanding. We ended our visit with lunch at their restaurant which was amazing. They offer a great selection of dishes with a number of vegetarian options. If you are in the Nashville, Chattanooga or Knoxville area I would highly recommend visiting Short Mountain Distillery.

4AmberAlert4 5:00 PM Nov 27, 2021

Hit or Miss
I’m giving it a 4 because I’ve visited twice recently. The first time was excellent—5-star tour and perfect meal at the restaurant. The second time, however, was rather disappointing—maybe 3-star worthy. Can’t confirm, but suspected the tour guide during the most recent visit was stoned (I’m definitely not anti-weed by any means, but professionally, I certainly would never use it at my job right before interacting with paying customers). Speech was slow, he kept pausing to remember his story, repeating things, going over to point out equipment while leaving the group sitting across the room, etc., causing the tour to run nearly 30 min longer than the stated time. This was disappointing because we had dinner reservations at the restaurant that we were trying to stay on time for due to another event we needed to attend afterward. Based on previous distillery tours I’ve been on, I don’t think all of the information he gave was completely accurate either. Once we finally got to the restaurant and were seated, we waited for service for several minutes before the hostess finally came over and brought water because our server was busy doing a tasting with another table..? I asked if we could go ahead and order food, but she said no. We wait a few more minutes before another server comes over and offers to take our drink orders, but says our server will have to get our food orders. So we watched the our server finish the tasting, then go tend to all her other tables before finally addressing us. We got spinach dip and salsa. I’m not sure either of them was freshly made. But about 5 minutes after our appetizer arrived, our entrees came out, which makes me suspect those weren’t fresh either. Crab cakes and pork chop were good, but collard greens had a strange taste. Asked for some pepper sauce or vinegar to help the flavor but was told they didn’t have that. Would’ve ordered dessert, but didn’t have time due to the tour being so long. I’m sure I’ll be back, but hope it’s more like the first visit next time.