NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An embattled state law establishing legal requirements to market spirits as “Tennessee Whiskey” could run afoul of the U.S. and state constitutions for carving out a special exemption for a single distiller, according to a new legal opinion from state Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
The Tennessee Legislature in 2013 excluded Kelso-based Prichard’s Distillery from the law passed at the behest of Jack Daniel’s that established rules for which products could label themselves as Tennessee whiskey.
Those rules codified what is known as the “Lincoln County Process,” which requires whiskey to be filtered through maple charcoal before being aged in unused charred barrels made out of oak. The filtering requirement makes up the principal difference from making bourbon.
Distiller Phil Prichard gained his exemption after arguing that he shouldn’t have to follow a charcoal filtering requirement because it does not follow the technique used by his grandfather.
“If I subscribe to this rule that Jack Daniel’s has imposed on us all, then I would then be paying homage to Jack Daniel’s and not paying homage to my grandfather Benjamin Prichard,” he said.
Slatery said in the legal opinion that Prichard’s exemption could run afoul of the equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution and the state constitution’s ban on suspending “any general law for the benefit of any particular individual.”
The law exempts Prichard’s by saying it does not apply to distilleries established between certain dates that match when Phil Prichard began doing business.
“There is no discernable reason to distinguish one distillery from other existing distilleries on this basis, especially since the exemption at issue is purportedly the one that distinguishes Tennessee Whiskey from bourbon,” Slatery said.
Prichard wishes the state would just go back to allowing distillers the same freedom to do business they had before 2013. “This is a law that was designed to benefit one company,” he said. “The whole law stinks.”
