PostModern Spirits

Welcome to Whiskey Lore's Whiskey Flights, your weekly home for discovering great craft distillery experiences around the globe. This week’s whisky flight is graciously sponsored and supported by Burnt Church Distillery of Bluffton South Carolina, creators of authentic Low Country South Carolina Spirits.

I’m Drew Hannush, best-selling author and today your travel guide as we make our way down I-75 from Kentucky and make our way toward the City of Knoxville. This will be our first Whisky Flight into Tennessee and by the time we leave, you will see there is a whole lot more to this state than just Jack Daniel’s. In fact, the three distilleries we will visit will show the great diversity of experiences throughout the Volunteer State.

And few distilleries stand out like the one we will be visiting today. While many distilleries focus on history and tradition, this one is looking to stretch the bounds of what whisky, gin, and other spirits can be. If you’re into cocktails, the story of PostModern will be of great interest to you. And if you’re a fan of American Single Malt, well, our host today, one of the distillery’s founders Ron Grazioso, will give you a sense of the special spin he is putting into a very traditional spirit.  

And while I find a parking space in the lot next to Jackson Terminal, where the distillery is located, let’s take a moment to get a feel for Downtown Knoxville. 

Knoxville, TN

If you’re looking for a blend of southern hospitality and a growing vibrant city, Knoxville has a lot to offer. Known as the home of the University of Tennessee’s Volunteers, Knoxville was also home to the 1982 World’s Fair, the second to last ever to be held in the United States. The park’s Sunsphere is an iconic piece of Knoxville’s skyline and it’s worth a visit to walk out on the observation deck or enjoy a concert or festival in the park’s amphitheater. A short distance away is the city's historic Market Square which began as a farmer’s market in the 1850s and was the heartbeat of the city until the first decade of the 20th century. The modern square is part of a revitalized downtown filled with charming architecture, a park with art, a small lazy river and a scene of concerts, plays, and the Market Square Farmers Market. Visitor’s that make their way from the square toward Old City, Knoxville, will pass by Cal Johnson Park, named after a self-made business man who rose from enslavement to becoming one of the richest men in early 20th century Tennessee. Complete the walk to Old City Knoxville and you’ll get even more 19th century architectural charm as you make your way toward Knoxville’s two distilleries, Knox Whiskey Works and PostModern. 

As I make my way up the steps into Jackson Terminal, past tables and chairs filled with people sipping cocktails and spirits, I’m reminded of my first visit here - not long after the pandemic hit. I got a chance to talk with our host Ron, one on one and we had a great conversation about his passion for single malts and learning the. 

Ron came to Knoxville from Boston about 20 years ago. Back then, he was in the field of Nuclear engineering, which, if you’ve ever been to the area, you’ll know it isn’t far from the one time home of the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge. A lot of that industry still permeates the area. Boston wasn’t really a whisky friendly place back then, but when he got to Knoxville, he started getting involved in the culture. He told me his go to was 12 year lot B Van Winkle which he said he could find for $40, because no one really knew about it. Not long after, he invested in Knoxville’s first modern craft distillery, Knox Whiskey Works and helped them develop their line of whiskies. But eventually, he decided to branch out, the result is PostModern Spirits.   

And so, to get you a better feel for the distillery, its spirits, and experiences, I asked Ron to give us some background on how he came up with the name of the distillery…

The Interview

Drew Hannush (02:40.047)
So it's an interesting name because you find that most distilleries when they're starting up now, they are either grabbing onto a grain to glass kind of a focus or they're digging into history. And history was really the way people really first, a lot of these distilleries first started getting into this business. Find a great story.

Ron Grazioso (02:54.859)
Mm -hmm.

Drew Hannush (03:09.327)
and then move forward with that and build your whiskey around it, which leads you to making bourbons or Tennessee whiskeys in Tennessee. But you went a completely different route. And was that really what was driving you to move forward in a different direction from what you were doing at the previous distillery?

Ron Grazioso (03:12.893)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (03:32.267)
Yeah, exactly. So we didn't want to be part of the sourcing culture. We didn't want to work with flavorings or coloring companies, anything like that. We wanted to do everything kind of made from scratch how it used to be done. So it's kind of that traditional method, but making something totally new with that. So postmodern spirits, the idea was, you know, we're going to do our own thing. We wanted it agnostic to our location. You know, we wanted people from California to think.

It could be Californian or wherever, it didn't matter. We didn't want to be too localized in that sense. And we wanted to have that freedom to make whatever we wanted, to not be called the whiskey company or not be called some other traditional thing with a story. Then it's kind of your only focus. We wanted to be able to do whatever we wanted. And the idea for the name kind of came about of how we make spirits and especially the whiskey, our malt whiskey. If you...

I always try to tell people it's a little complicated story, but when you think about the original spirits that were distilled, the very first one would have been distilling wine into what we would call brandy. And that was in Italy. And then the second one was really just distilling beer into whiskey in Scotland. And back then beers were smoked beers for the most part. The malt, to stop the malting process, they would heat up the malt. They would use peat.

To do that, it would impart a smokiness to it. So people were drinking smoked beers. So when someone wanted to go distill a whiskey or distill a beverage that was already fermented, the idea was you didn't go and make your own. You just already took what was around. So people were drinking wine. They distilled that into brandy or schnapps or something like that. And beer was around. So you just distill that and see what that turned into. And that ended up being, you know, Scotch for the most part.

Drew Hannush (05:00.751)
Hmm.

Ron Grazioso (05:24.107)
So when we thought about that whole idea of that, what we did for our malt whiskey was we worked with local brewers and one in particular, Crafty Bastard, that was making a smoked beer. So we took their purposely smoked beer, not with peat, but with cherry wood, and distilled that into our malt whiskey. So it's kind of a postmodern spin on the original Scotch, where they had to do these things because that's all they had. Now we're just doing what they did, but purposely doing it.

in our own style, basically.

Drew Hannush (05:55.983)
This is something, first of all, I really hadn't really thought about the fact that they were using peat for beer back in those days, but that makes absolutely total sense that whatever they were doing with whiskey back then, because you weren't able to really get coal into some of these really deep highland regions. And so, so peat would be what would happen. That really interesting to think what a peated beer would.

taste like, but I'm sure they're probably around.

Ron Grazioso (06:29.035)
Right. There are some Polish styles. I'm sure you may be familiar with German rauchbier, which just means smoked beer. It's popular in Bamberg in Germany. So some of them are purposely that way, but a lot of them would have been that way anyway, just because that's what they had in Scotland at the time to warm up the malt to stop the germination process. So there was no reason they would have done that differently for beer or scotch or anything.

and they would have just easily taken what they were already drinking as a fermented beverage and just distill that and see what happens.

Drew Hannush (07:05.167)
So it must have been a bit of a financial advantage, I guess, to not have to buy all the fermenting equipment or to buy all the brewing equipment and all of that stuff ahead of time. But you also make gin and you make vodka and you make liqueurs. Are you using the same mash bill basically for making those as well?

Ron Grazioso (07:30.603)
No, no, only our whiskeys, our malt whiskey and our rye whiskey, we work with brewers, local brewers to make that wort for us. And then we take that in, ferment it, distill it and barrel age it. All of our other spirits usually start with a base of a neutral spirit that we have to buy. We can't make a neutral spirit 190 proof with our equipment. But yeah, we wanted to work with those local brewers though, because we know there's so many in town.

And they don't use their equipment all that much. I mean, they may use it once a week. So they're more than happy to just do this easy, simple process for us.

Drew Hannush (08:06.255)
So how did the process go about? Cause you started out and you were making your rye whiskey. And I love your quote that I saw in a newspaper, where you said, you know, rye is made with the tears of distillers because it really is a hard grain to work with. And now were you approaching brewers who already were working with rye or was this something that you approached them with and said, can we use this grain?

Ron Grazioso (08:20.203)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (08:35.339)
Right. It was totally different kind of story between the malt whiskey and the rye whiskey. The malts, we just went and there was already a beer there and we just basically took that beer recipe from Crafty Bastard. And we thought we would just probably stick with malt whiskey for some time and maybe that would be our only whiskey we weren't sure. And then a new brewery opened up that's no longer around, but it's called Elkmont Exchange and they had what's called a mash press. So instead of a lotter ton,

where you filter out the wart from the spent grain, they have a really, it's like this accordion style mash press that you put the grain in, everything from the mash and it squeezes it out. So you can separate the spent grain from the wart. And what that does is it helps with stickier grains. So they're able to get a higher efficiency, work with, you know, corn or rye or some other grains that are harder to deal with. And so when we understood that and they opened up, we,

contacted them to see if they'd be willing to work with us to make that rye wort. And because it's made from distillers, tears, I know, because the first couple passes we had with it, even with them, you know, rye is just so sticky as a wort. When they boiled it to just, you know, as a normal brewing process before they transferred it to us for fermentation, they scorched it and they just weren't used to something so sticky. And

I still, you know, fermented it, distilled it, barrel aged it, everything, hoping that maybe some of the chowder in the barrel would get rid of kind of that some of that acrid flavor. But in the end, two of the very first barrels we made went down the drain. They just weren't drinkable. So the very bad, it was a really tough process to get this going, but it took about a few batches to finally kind of nail it. And it was a rough, rough go at first, but it was, you know, rewarding because we know.

Drew Hannush (10:16.079)
Mm.

Ron Grazioso (10:32.715)
I don't know the number, but it must be a huge number that most ryes on the market are all made by MGP or some other distiller. Even big distilleries don't even make their own rye. They source it again.

Drew Hannush (10:40.015)
Hehehehe

Drew Hannush (10:45.391)
Yeah, it's been a real eye opener going around to distilleries and talking about rye whiskey. You know, the ones who make it themselves because they will talk about the headaches that they have. Pennington is a good example that, you know, they, when you first start working with it, it expands. And if you don't plan properly, you're going to have rye all over your floor. So yeah, it's, it's definitely an interesting grain to work with.

Ron Grazioso (11:08.427)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew Hannush (11:15.651)
When you're coming up with a mash bill for this, I think what makes your rye unique is the fact that you don't use any corn in it and it's not just a straight rye, but you are adding in malt on top of that. What do you think that brings to the character of that rye whiskey?

Ron Grazioso (11:36.779)
I mean, some of that is really just due to our process and that it helps the brewers to break up the amount of rye that they have to use. So ours is a 70 % rye, 30 % malted barley, and that malt helps a lot. You know, of course the enzymatic power of the malt for the conversion is really helpful, but it also helps create that lotter bed for them because now we've had to take that recipe and move it to a traditional brewery that didn't have a mash breast anymore since Elkmont Exchange closed down.

So it helps with kind of filtering that as well, but it still ties it back to that malt whiskey that we have. And I think there's just so much flavor and so many things you can do with malt, you know, and how malt takes up other flavors from roasting and smoking and a lot of other grains don't do that. So I think it still provides that nice mellowness. Corn has very little flavor in it. Wheat has very little flavor in it, but malt has a great nutty flavor that comes through.

And I still think that complements the rye very well. So we're happy to work more with rye than other traditional grains in malt.

Drew Hannush (12:42.383)
Very nice. I would have to say, I don't think I'm wrong about this, that you guys were probably the first in Tennessee to do a American single malt. Would you agree with that?

Ron Grazioso (12:54.923)
you know, it might've actually been Corsair. They, when they, they use a lot of malt as well. they're a great inspiration for us, I think, and, you know, a lot of other distilleries. And I think it was similar for them. They, they do the whole process themselves there, but when they started, they were using brewer equipment. So I think they were forced in more of a malt based whiskey because they needed to lauder and, they couldn't distill on grain and things like that. So that's what they were.

Drew Hannush (12:59.151)
Yes, okay. Yep.

Drew Hannush (13:11.887)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (13:24.747)
kind of going forward with. But they've turned that around and made a great whiskey and showed people that it doesn't all have to be bourbon or Tennessee whiskey or any of these other standard, more traditional whiskies.

Drew Hannush (13:38.255)
You made a shift in the name though. It was American Single Malt. I found a bottle on the shelf in Nashville last time I was there. And then I look on your website and it's now straight malt. Was there a reason to make that shift? Cause it's still the same product, I'm guessing.

Ron Grazioso (13:54.155)
It's still the same product. The only difference is originally we started in 15 gallon barrels and they age relatively quick. And so our first batches were only about a year old or so. Since then we've moved up to 30 gallon barrels and those need to just age longer. So those age around two to three years in straight just means that it's aged at least two years in a brand new barrel. So we just wanted to include that on the label to show people that it's a straight malt whiskey.

Of course, we're going to kind of stick with the American single malt since it looks like that may finally get a definition through the TTB soon. And I think that's going to be a great category for craft distillers. And that hopefully brings in more people to try it and to let them know that there's more out there and that this is a special whiskey for the U .S. It's not just scotch. It's not nothing like scotch and it's not bourbon anymore. So it's a really unique spirit. I think that's going to come through in the U .S.

Drew Hannush (14:55.343)
So you are also something that comes through in looking at your website and in seeing the experience at Jackson's Terminal where you're at in Old City Knoxville is your work with cocktails and that it's.

Ron Grazioso (15:11.403)
Mm -mm.

Drew Hannush (15:14.671)
I don't know that I've seen a site that has so many cocktail recipes on it. So you guys are all in on this, on the cocktail direction of this. give me sort of an idea. Was this kind of an initial plan or is this something that just evolved as early on you weren't sourcing? So you were making vodka, Jim and L 'Course.

Ron Grazioso (15:34.923)
Mm -hmm.

Right. So we did have this initial plan, though I think it's expanded much more than we initially thought. We weren't sure how much we would be making cocktails in our tasting room. But for better or worse, the state law in Tennessee says that you can do samples, cocktails, you know, whatever you want in the tasting room, but you have to make every part of it if it's alcohol. So you can't bring in a vermouth or Campari or anyone else's alcohol. So you have to make it all.

So when we started, we had a couple initial gins, one or two liqueurs or vodka, you know, while we're aging the whiskey and, you know, developing some other recipes. And it got to the point where you're kind of limited on what you can do with that. And our bartenders just kind of started demanding more spirits to work with, to make more complex cocktails, to make things more interesting. So I would start experimenting with different type of Amari or different type of liqueurs, different gins.

and would slowly introduce those into our bar. Originally, I would just make very small batches of them, give them to the bartenders to use. And then what would happen is eventually customers got interested in those spirits and they'd say, well, I want to buy that now. And I would just make it for the bar, just, you know, five or six bottles at a time. And so it got to the point where if they liked it enough, then would design a label for it, would go through the whole TTB process and get it.

you know, legal and ready, and then would start selling it in the tasting room and then would get notifications from local bars and restaurants that they want to have it. And so that would have to go to distribution with it. And so, you know, we started with maybe five spirits. Now we have about 15 and I would say at least 10 or more of them are in distribution. Some of them are still only in the tasting room, but we have at least 10 plus that go to distribution.

Drew Hannush (17:13.135)
Hmm

Ron Grazioso (17:31.595)
for bars and restaurants all throughout Tennessee.

Drew Hannush (17:34.799)
You've got some really interesting ones to the empirical gin. I've seen a lot of, kind of the rise of Navy strength gins. so this is a Navy strength gin, but you decided to go all in on the juniper. was that so you're, you're using double the amount. I get a sense that that is really probably more perfect for making cocktails than it would be versus something that you're going to sit straight.

Ron Grazioso (17:41.579)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (17:46.475)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (17:59.659)
Yeah, exactly. So kind of my philosophy is really nothing other than the whiskey's are meant to drink straight for us. We don't make anything that's like a Bailey's or a Kahlua, you know, just to put it over ice. So that's really made for cocktail culture in cocktails. So for me, I try to make all the flavors much more concentrated. The last thing I want to do, and I've had plenty of gin and tonics that just tastes like a vodka tonic in the end.

that the gin flavor is so light when you add the tonic water to it and the lime, it almost gets lost. And so a great example is that empirical gin. Two things is it's super concentrated with Jupiter, Juniper and other botanicals. But the fact that it's Navy strength even makes it more concentrated. And I try to relate that to customers is don't think that it has more alcohol in it. Of course it does. But all what I'm doing is I'm not diluting it with water more.

So it's coming off at a much higher concentration of flavor. So now when you do make a cocktail with it, it'll stand up to those other ingredients much better. And so we try to do that with a lot of our other spirits to really let people mix them. They don't have to use a whole lot and they can make a really big bold cocktails with just a small amount of ingredients.

Drew Hannush (19:19.137)
So when you're coming up with all the liqueurs that you've come up with, usually that's kind of a way to be able to add more cocktails to your list.

Ron Grazioso (19:31.179)
Right. Right. So they all start that way of, you know, what, what do the bartenders want in our tasting room? Do they, do they want something with a certain flavor profile, a sweet thing, bitter? And so I'll kind of work with them a little bit to understand that. And then we'll throw something out there, see how it works for them. see if, if it works at all, see if some customers like it. And then we'll go through that process of, you know, making it legal and what people want. the same that.

Probably one of our newest spirits are, or for net Gaio is in the style of a for net Bronco started that way. I just started making it for the bar, tasting some customers on it, seeing if anyone was interested in it, how it would work in a cocktail or just drinking it straight. And then we finally, you know, dialed in the recipe, kind of got it out there. And that same thing happened. We put it just in the tasting room. I wait, it's a barrel age for net. I made one barrel of it. It's sold enough. And then.

at least five or 10 bars and downtown Knoxville started contacting us asking if they could buy it. And now it's in distribution and now I have to make, you know, barrels of it every month or so.

Drew Hannush (20:41.103)
Nice. So you are, are you still doing the tours yourself, hosting the tours yourself on the weekends?

Ron Grazioso (20:47.883)
Yeah, yeah, myself and my partner Stanton. Yeah, we still do them all ourself. And that's part of the reason is I've been to so many tours from, you know, craft distilleries and large ones. And I realize much of the time it's just a higher tour guide and they really don't know much about the process. They have a script and it's great for a lot of consumers. And I think that's, it's fine for 90%, but for that other 10 % that actually, you know, know a little bit more about, you know, what they're into.

maybe have gone to other distilleries and breweries before. It really gives them more information when we're there because we can tell them, answer any question. I'm still the sole production person in our distillery, so I can answer anything they want and tell them really the story behind how we made these spirits, if that's what they're interested in or the process or anything like that.

Drew Hannush (21:39.215)
You ever get any shocking questions, you're like, wow, that was a lot deeper than I expected.

Ron Grazioso (21:43.819)
Yeah, I mean, I still, you know, you'll get those random people that, you know, might even be doing this themselves. So they're really interested in just, you know, the cost of something or how long something takes or anything like that. So we get some people that are already home distilling. I remember a food scientist once asking me the type of starches that are in corn or in different grains. You know, it's amylose and amylopectin. So I can't imagine any.

tour guide answering that question. So it just, it helps to showcase that we actually know what we're doing. They might not like our spirits, you know, that's, that's everyone's palette, but at least we kind of know what we're doing here and try to stay on top of things.

Drew Hannush (22:29.839)
It is, when did it become apparent to you kind of the irony of having a distillery called postmodern in old city Knoxville?

Ron Grazioso (22:41.835)
Yeah, I mean, it is, it's fun. People, I think people are pretty confused by the name. Most people don't know much about postmodernism. I really didn't. I kind of just learned as we kind of thought up different names and kind of what we're going after. But yeah, you know, we're in the old city and Knoxville is not much of a modern city, I would say anyway, but that was kind of part of it was just to say, you know,

we're not going to just be the same old place that you've been to before. We want to showcase you something totally new. If I try to tell people, if you've had this spirit before, then we're not doing our job right. You know, you should be able to only buy this stuff. I'm not going to make, you know, a fireball or Bailey's because you can already buy it at a much cheaper price and it's, it's already a great product for what it is. You know, so if you've tasted something like this before, then.

I probably screwed up because we're only trying to make new and unique things.

Drew Hannush (23:41.167)
Very nice. So if somebody is coming down, I mean, I 75 I 40, you're really catching people coming North, South, East and West, which is, which is great. So if someone's making their way through Knoxville and they want to plan on coming by the distillery, are there some other things in town you would suggest maybe they take part in during a visit?

Ron Grazioso (23:53.387)
Mm -hmm, right.

Ron Grazioso (24:07.307)
definitely. We work with a lot of local brewers in town. We're actually part of the Knoxville area brewers association as a kind of an off member, but we're not a brewer, but because we work with so many, we have a huge brewery scene now. And what I love is so many of them are right in downtown or within maybe one mile walking distance from us. So one of my favorites is just two blocks away from us.

and that we worked with, we've developed a gin with them before. Some other spirits is a pretentious beer and glass company. And what's so interesting and unique about them is it's a business side by side of a brewery and right next to it is a glass blowing studio. And that studio blows, glass beer glasses. So the owner started as a glass blower and he got into beer and he started just making.

custom unique beer glasses. but then he was a home brewer as well. So he started these two businesses side by side. So when you go there, you can get a glass of beer in a really unique, glass. You can go out on their patio and they have a door that connects to the glass side and you can watch them blow beer glasses right in front of you while you're sipping on your beer. So there's a lot of great craft people around that are doing really unique things in Knoxville. And I think it's.

what makes us so special and what makes us stand out from a lot of other bigger cities or cities around us is there's a really lot of uniqueness. And a lot of that is downtown, which is really helpful for people that are just wanting to walk around and not get in their car and deal with traffic.

Drew Hannush (25:49.039)
It sort of feels like Knoxville is going through a Renaissance like Greenville, South Carolina, where I'm at right now, downtown, they're establishing the park down there. And it feels like a town you can walk around and just enjoy at your leisure.

Ron Grazioso (25:58.123)
Mm -hmm.

Ron Grazioso (26:06.379)
Yeah, there's been a lot of investment in downtown since probably the last 10 years or so. I remember when I first moved there, the main market area, Market Square was just all ripped up in dirt and they redid all of that. And they've been investing heavily since then and really trying to bring people back. And at least in the last five years now, there must be at least five or six brand new hotels that have opened up right in downtown. Almost all of them have rooftop bars now and

So they're bringing in a lot of people to downtown Knoxville now.

Drew Hannush (26:40.495)
Fantastic. Well, Ron, thank you so much for giving us some background on postmodern and giving us a sense of what you guys are all about and why people should put you into their plans when they're coming down I -75 or I -40 or if they're in the Knoxville area.

Ron Grazioso (26:55.403)
Great. Thank you, Drew. Thanks for having me.

Sponsor Burnt Church Distillery

I’d like to take a moment to congratulate my friend Chris Crowe and the Burnt Church Distillery in Bluffton, SC for their great success this year in grabbing platinum and double platinum honors in Fred Minnick’s 2024 ASCOT awards. Their Anita’s Choice six-gran bourbon and Palmer’s Stretch rye took home platinum honors while Bluffton Whiskey won best of the Rice Whiskey category with a double platinum. Priding themselves on the use of locally grown grains, Burnt Church strives to bring a taste of the Low Country of South Carolina and an innovative spirit to what they make. And now you can enjoy the flavor of these award winning whiskies by purchasing through seelbachs.com or burntchurchdistillery.com. And while you’re on the website, get a sense of the beauty of the distillery, Burnt Church’s dedication to the local community, and make sure to book one of their tours or mixology classes. Burnt Church is an experience you won’t soon forget and the perfect addition to your plans in the Low Country. Visit burntchurchdistillery.com.

Closing Details

I hope you enjoyed this virtual flight to PostModern Spirits in Old Town Knoxville, TN. If I piqued your interest in experiencing PostModern, and you’re wanting to keep track of this and other great distilleries you hear about on the show, make sure to head to whiskey-lore.com/flights, find the distillery you want to add to your itinerary, then log-in and add it to your handy Whiskey Lore distillery wish list. Then, when you’re ready to plan your trip, you’ll also find maps, links, and distillery planning details for this and all of the other whisky distilleries in Tennessee. That’s whiskey-lore.com/flights

Now, stay tuned because I’ll have some closing travel tips if you plan on visiting PostModern, but first, it’s time for This Week in Whiskey Lore.

This Week in Whiskey Lore

Congratulations to Echlinville Distillery in County Down, Ireland on the launch of their  inaugural estate single malt and single pot still whiskies. The distillery was determined not to release their own spirits were deemed fully matured. Known as Echlinville - the Beginning, these limited release whiskies have 7 year age statements and include spirits that are up to 9 years in age. 

And it was during this week in 1870, when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the arrest of three men on whisky and revenue frauds that spread over 2 years and totaled over $3 million (or over $60m in today’s money). One of the men arrested was Peter Schwab, a mechanic by trade who, seven years earlier, showed little in the way of prospects for his future. But after getting into politics, he found a way to profit off of his position and began building what he hoped would be the largest whisky ring in the country. The weapon he used to build his wealth was Abraham Lincoln’s whisky excise tax. The money he embezzled off of the tax allowed him to purchase  two Hamilton County Ohio distilleries. Soon, he had several distilleries under his control, placing men in positions that allowed him to avoid paying federal taxes. Known as Uncle Peter, he quickly earned the nickname The King of the Whisky Ring. But after being arrested with two accomplices, his business would fall into bankruptcy. But it wouldn’t be the end for Peter Schwab. His legacy would include bringing street cars and paved streets to Hamilton County as a politician. He also owned an ice-making company and the The Cincinnati Brewery Company. Eventually, he would become one of the most powerful political bosses in the state of Ohio - showing his arrest in June of 1870 as a leader of the Whisky Ring, was not enough to keep him down.

Just Hamilton Article

Newspapers.com Article Jun 6, 1870 Daily Evening Express (Lancaster City, PA) page 1.

The Wrap Up

As we prepare to leave Knoxville and PostModern Spirits behind, I wanted to remind you of a couple of travel planning tips if you're planning on visiting the area.  

First, know that if you park in the lot next to PostModern, you’re basically just a few steps up the hill away from another distillery, Knox Whiskey Works. Also, Knoxville is a great jumping off point for adventures in the Great Smoky Mountains, or if you want to head to Oak Ridge and learn more about the development of the atomic bomb and the history of the atomic age.

Closing and Three Things

As we close out our trip to PostModern, let me give you my three reasons why you should put this distillery on your Whiskey Lore Wish List. 

• First, how often do you get a chance to tour around a distillery with the owner and distiller as your guide? For those that want to dig deeper with their questions, this is a great distillery to visit.
• If you’re a cocktail fan, then another good reason to visit is to buy some of PostModern’s spirits that are specifically designed to assist in the making of the perfect cocktail.
• And third, if you’re a fan of single malts like I am, PostModern’s cherrywood smoked malt is definitely worth trying. It’s a unique spin that yielded some excellent results.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. It’s time to hit I-40 and make our way west - but not to Nashville. No, we are heading up into the beautiful Tennessee hills to experience a distillery that was one of the early entrants into the Tennessee craft distilling scene. We’ll meet the founder, Billy Kaufman, a California native who brought some of his western philosophies onto a 400 acre farm in Tennessee and created a getaway for whisky lovers. Short Mountain Distillery is up next. Make sure to subscribe to the Whiskey Lore podcast, so don’t miss any of the great Whiskey Flights to come. I’m your travel guide Drew Hannush. Until we meet again, cheers and Slainte mhath. 

For transcripts and travel information including maps, distillery planning information and more, head to whiskey-lore.com/flights