Moonshine Tours and Tastes at Dawsonville Distillery . . . But No Sales

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The distillery sits on the same block as Dawsonville City Hall and the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, and the closest liquor store is about half a mile away.

Cheryl Wood is the owner, and she’s proud to be a ninth-generation manufacturer of corn whiskey. “When they were taxing it and didn’t want to pay the taxes, they decided ‘Well, we’re not gonna do that. We’re just gonna make it at night under the light of the moon,’” says Wood. “So it got the name moonshine.”

Wood says the distillery gets up to 50 visitors a day who take a taste of the family recipe. And those visitors ask, all the time, to buy a bottle. “Then I say, ‘Well, I’m sorry. We can’t sell it to you here.’  And they say, ‘Why not?’ And I then I say, ‘Because it’s against the law, and you’ll need to go to a liquor store.’  ‘Are you kidding me?’ is what they say.”

Georgia’s liquor laws have a three-tier distribution system. It goes from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer. And there is no cutting out the middle man.

In this year’s legislative session, a bill to make an exception got tabled quicker than you can say “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville.”

But Kevin Tanner, who serves Dawsonville in the Georgia House of Representatives, says he’ll support a more narrowly written bill next year that he thinks will please both Wood’s customers and the big distributors. “It’s an unfair disadvantage,” says Tanner.  The folks at Dawsonville Moonshine Distillery just are never going to be able to compete at that level, and they should be able to sell some of their product onsite.”

Wood and Tanner are quick to point out that selling the ‘shine on premise can be a win-win.

According to Tanner, “If someone comes in to visit the distillery from Florida, and they pick up a couple of and if it’s something they like, then they’re going to be looking at their local retail establishment to buy the product in the future.”

In the meantime, Wood says she will continue to support the free distillery tours with the revenue she makes from moonshine sales in Georgia liquor stores especially the one a half-mile down the road.