Aaron: Welcome to Explore The Smokies podcast. If this is your first time joining us, welcome! I’m your host Aaron.

April: And I’m your other host, April. Today, we’re going to dive into a bit of the history of Pigeon Forge to talk whisky and moonshine.

Aaron: I love history and I know you love moonshine, April.

April: I do. I really do.

Aaron: We’re going to talk about [crosstalk] the Old Forge Distillery and how it came to life. The roots, I understand can be traced back to the 18th century, when Mordecai Lewis was granted 151 acres along the banks of the Little Pigeon River. The Lewis family then built an iron forge mill and a post office and established the community of Pigeon Forge.

April: And so, the name Old Forge Distillery was inspired by the iron forge that sat on the grounds and help shape the community. The distillery is located just next to the original mill that was built in 1830.

And our guest today is Keener Shanton, the head distiller at Old Forge Distillery, and he handles the research development and production at Old Forge. He has been described as a mixture between a comedian and a mad scientist, which sounds super intriguing. So, welcome, Kinnear, to the Explore The Smokies podcast! Thanks for joining us.

Keener Shanton: You have it pretty well covered. You got more of the history and the dates and I knew.

April: Oh well, okay. Well, I guess we can end this now. Thanks.

Keener: We could talk about liquor now.

April: Yes. All right. Well before we jump into Old Forge, tell us a little bit about you. How did you first become a distiller, because this is an outstandingly cool gig?

Keener: I couldn’t agree more, about how much I have a blast. It’s a fun job. It started, then if it’s probably been close to 14 years ago now. I’m having a hard time keeping track of those dates. But I was working full-time as a paid fireman for the city of Sevierville, which is a neighboring town of Pigeon Forge, where we’re located. Our schedules are 24 on, and 48 off, which is pretty common. At least, it was. So I work 24 hours and the next two days were basically a weekend. And just for an errant internet search one time, I found out how easy it was to at least build a very basic pot still for distillation of alcohol and at my garage and a torch and some solder and did it. Probably hope the federal government isn’t listening but the very first batch I made was poor. I didn’t have any fermented mash, obviously. I just finished my pot and I needed something with some alcohol in it to distill and I had an 18 pack of beer.

A very famous blue canned beer. I don’t know if I should mention it or not, but I dumped it in the pot and made my first batch of distilled alcohol that way. And quickly realized that I was probably going to be doing it forever. So I’d probably better get permitted and there’s a couple of different routes of permitting for the Tax and Trade Bureau, the federal government that regulates the industry. There’s a fuel ethanol producer permit, which is fairly easy to get, and a distilled spirit plant permit, which is the one you have to have if you’re going to do it professionally for consuming. The fuel ethanol producer permit is not terribly difficult. You can’t drink it, you can’t sell it. You do have to still report it, but it does allow you to own and operate it still for the distillation of alcohol.

April: So you did that, and let me guess, you tried it out on all the firefighters. Yes? They did some sampling?

Keener: That was the joke. It was going to be, you know, I’m making fuel for the soul here not for your lawnmower.

April: Nice.

Keener: That was going to be my story if they came knocking on my door. I’m sure it wouldn’t have flown at the time, but hey, I was 14 years dumber then so I thought it might work. But anyway, so I realized pretty quickly, like I said, that I was hooked. So for 6 or 7 years there, while I was at the fire department, I was doing that on all of my time off. And I have the opportunity through some cousins of mine, who we may have mentioned already. I doubt it, but the Blantons, the Faulkners, said that they were going to be opening a distillery.

I read it in the newspaper, actually. I wasn’t even in on the discussion, originally until about a year later into the build, I came along and I got the opportunity to sample some of that lawnmower fuel in front of some important people over there, and I got the opportunity to jump ship and do it full time and haven’t looked back. We just celebrated 7 years of being open this past July 27th.

April: Oh wow, that’s great.

Aaron: That’s great. Hey Kinnear, explain it to me. How do you combine the old with the new craft your whiskies and your moon shines?

Keener: Oh gosh. Well, you know you kind of mentioned some of the histories that we have there. You know that place is rich in history, right there in that square in Pigeon Forge. We do try to pull from, you know, some historical people in that area. And say we do, we’re trying to, and our first person was actually not even a person. Cyclone Jim is our first expression, in a line of products that kind of harkens back to a historical figure there. And it was a horse, or actually, a series of horses that wore that name, that turned a clay grinding-and I’m not a potter. Tommy would probably be better to speak to this, he’s our head potter. But it turns a mill, is my understanding that kind of pumps clay. So his job was basically to walk in a circle, hence the term Cyclone. It wasn’t a terribly exciting job, so I guess the Cyclone part’s a little tongue-in-cheek. He just kind of walked in a circle and over-through the year- He started, sorry, about 1946? I think is when that mill or I’m sorry, that pottery opened. And he was really the town’s first tourist attraction. There was nothing else in town except for this pottery and this horse.

April: Oh my gosh.

Keener: And throughout the years, you know, they had to replace him. I think he might have even- Lori, you know, probably wouldn’t want me to mention this, but I think probably at one time like when Jim might have been a mule or a donkey or something briefly.

April: Well, too [crosstalk] late. You mentioned it. So [crosstalk] I can’t take it out now.

Keener: [inaudible] What money? I guess.

April: Oh yeah, okay. I can see that. So, you know, we talked about what sets you apart from other distillers and other distilleries because you know there’s a lot down there now. You can go from one place to the next place, trying things out. But for those people who actually know about whiskey, and know about moonshine, there are things that set you apart from others.

Keener: Sure, Cyclone Jim is just one of them. The Iron Forge, which is our namesake is another one. The Old Mill as far as I’m concerned, which we sit right next to, came into operation in 1830, has been continuously operating ever since. It’s one of the top 5 if not the oldest continuously operating mill in America. So it’s been grinding grain for people to eat and people to drink since then. And like you mentioned, Aaron, a little earlier, it’s also been a post office. It provided power very briefly, for some in town before TVA. So, that’s interesting.

April: And you also offer other things outside of the moonshine line. I just want to make sure that we do just like, a quick thing on your Harvest Gin because [crosstalk] I think that’s a really interesting story.

Keener: Oh yeah, but don’t let me bog us down on anything boring. I mean, for the others there’s history but-

April: No, this is great.

Keener: For sure. You know, we opened originally with three clear moonshines. The labeling and the formulation process is pretty difficult and time-consuming, so that’s what we had come out of the gate with. We quickly released several more moonshines, but just as quickly, we wanted to make sure that we stepped outside of the moonshine category. Not abandoning it, obviously, I mean, that’s a lot of history there, a lot of heritage for us. But we wanted to set ourselves apart is as a craft distillery as quickly as we could. And that Harvest gin that you mentioned is definitely one of those products. Bourbon, Rum, Vodka. There’s a rock and rye line, that is kind of a nod to pre-Prohibition liqueurs.

We get a lot of inspiration for that line from our farmhouse kitchen, as far as savory notes like thyme and rosemary. We have a little herb garden. We have a rum-based cream liqueur line. So yeah, we wanted to make sure, like I said, not to abandon the category that does so well for us, but we want to let you know that we’re doing things outside of that too that are really exciting. Probably the most exciting I get in there is muscadine season when we do get to bring in those fresh grapes from a local neighboring town and crush them, ferment them, distill them into brandy, and then re-distill them into a gin and then we finish it in a Tennessee Bourbon Barrel that’s used. So that Harvest Gin spans several categories. As I said, there’s a little bit of bourbon to it, a little bit of brandy, and a whole lot of gin. But it starts in Tennessee and it ends there too.

April: I can hear the passion in your voice.

Aaron: Yeah, seriously.

April: I mean you’re talking about it. I can hear the passion.

Keener: That’s not passion, that’s caffeine.

April: Oh!

Keener: I wanted to make- [inaudible]

April: Well, I mean come on. You have to have a lot of passion behind this because I’ve never met a firefighter that didn’t love their job. So to be able to go from being a firefighter to something that even kind of, elevates that level of excitement is pretty cool.

Keener: Well, good, I’m glad that you’re picking up on it because I really do, I enjoy it. And it’s something that I’m passionate about. You know, just to be honest, I like drinking too, so it’s not bad to be able to make it cheaper than buying.

April: So I will be honest, I’ve been to Old Forge a number of times. I love the specialty cocktail room that you have. It kind of reminds me of, a very, in the open, speakeasy. But the specialty cocktails are amazing, and the sampling! For people who haven’t done any of the samplings down in that area, it’s phenomenal. You know, all the little cups that they give you. How many is it, when you come for a sample?

Keener: We will start you off at our moonshine sampling bar with 10 cups. Our SKUs, our products, have grown to basically 24 in that line. So you’ve got some choosing to do. We have a cream stand in there, that’s set up like a little ice cream bar that you can go sample another you know, the seasonal creams over there too. So you’re probably looking at a total of, you know, anywhere from 13 to 16 samples that you can come in there and do for free and kind of get an idea of what you may like from those samples. And then you know, weasel your way or meander your way into a cocktail bar.

April: You could spend some time.

Keener: Yeah, you can. And you can tell, you can ask him. Say, I like coffee moonshine. What can I do with this to take this experience home? If I want to take coffee moonshine home, how do I enjoy it at home? [crosstalk] And they’ll whip you up something really-

April: I am so glad you said that. Coffee moonshine. Do you know, [crosstalk] that was one of the ones I kept skipping over every time I come do sampling over there? And finally, somebody’s like you have to try this and like I just can’t imagine and I did and I left with the bottom. It is it is phenomenal.

Keener: I’ll be honest, you know, that was one of the first ones we came out with after those three initial clears because we wanted to come out with something that nobody had yet. That was one of them. Coffee, Chocolate was one, that was modeled off a chocolate cake across the street at the cafe. And our French Toast, which is kind of a nod to the french toast at the Old Mill Restaurant, because nobody those. The coffee was just straight-up. I like White Russian. I’m actually wearing a Big Lebowski t-shirt right now. It has some choice words on it, I can’t repeat right here for you. But I like White Russians, and so I wanted to basically a Kahlua, a higher-proofed substitute for that, to make a good White Russian.

April: Nice. And they serve that in the cocktail lounge.

Keener: Absolutely. It may be called a White Russian or depending on who’s in there. But I think on the menu we call it a Pale Appalachian, and it’s made with, our vanilla ice cream liqueur, which is some of that rum-based stuff I’ve been telling you about earlier. Really it’s just one-to-one or a 2-1 there depending on how much how strong you want it. It makes a pretty good White Russian.

April: Keener, I think I’m going to come to visit you after the podcast is done today.

Keener: You might as well, you know, how far away are you guys?

April: Far enough away, can’t see it today but maybe tomorrow.

Aaron: That’s funny.

April: Actually, we do have to wrap it up. This is so much fun. I feel like we need a part 2 segment for all of this and maybe we will do that at another time. But I know Aaron has got his Smoky Mountain 5 questions he wants to be able to get in.

Aaron: Keener, are you familiar-

Keener: Yes, please.

Aaron: We have 5, we call it the Smoky Mountain 5.

Keener: Okay.

Aaron: We just do quick answers to our five questions and first thing that comes to your head. Okay?

Keener: Okay.

Aaron: What’s your favorite place in the Smokies?

Keener: Mount LeConte.

Aaron: Your favorite place to eat?

Keener: It’s a new place called The Appalachian, in downtown Sevierville.

Aaron: Okay, good to know.

Keener: Wait a minute, back up. Hang on a minute. The Old Mill Pottery House Cafe, of course.

Aaron: Got it.

April: So we have 2. You have lunch at one place, dinner at another. Got it.

Keener: Yes.

Aaron: Where’s your favorite place to take a photo at? Like if I’m coming there and I’m taking that special photo shot. Where am I going?

Keener: I think you’re either going to go back up to Mount LeConte, which was my first answer there or you’re going to take the greenway, I think. Gosh. I’m drawing a blank on the name of which does us absolutely no good right now. Just go up to LeConte, 5-10 miles up the Alum Cave Trail, and take all the pictures you want.

Aaron: Got it. And what’s the reason why you think people love coming back to the Smokies year after year?

Keener: I think the biggest reason is, obviously the mountains. There’s the national park. Everything there is to do, it’s a family-oriented place and that’s what I think the biggest takeaway is. We want you to bring your kids, we want you to have such a good time, and those kids to have such a good time that they come back with their kids. The next generation. You know, we want to build a relationship with the entire family and there’s something for everybody.

Aaron: And do you have a bartender named Rob by chance?

Keener: Oh my gosh, he goes by Rob sometimes. Yeah, we do. Rob is incredible.

Aaron: I hear he’s incredible.

Keener: Yeah, he’s a character too. He’s definitely one of the prominent faces behind that sampling bar. We’ve got so many good personalities back there. But you know, Rob’s is his own thing for sure.

Aaron: Okay, that’s good. Hey, we appreciate it. That’s the Smoky Mountain 5.

April: All right, thank you so much for being with us. I actually do have to come in because of a friend who is in love with your peach moonshine, and she is actually constantly asking so maybe I should be a little more worried about that. But I gotta pick some up for her. Thanks for joining us, Keener.

Keener: Thanks for the opportunity guys. It was good to talk to you.