Today at 1:34 p.m.
by
Anne Braly / Tennessee Lookout
Bill Lee stands beside an old boxcar parked off to one side of a lot at the Chattanooga Choo Choo – quite a fitting place for an old railroad car to spend its days. But it’s not sitting empty.
As Lee pulls the massive iron door open, its contents are revealed: Wooden barrels filled with aging spirits.
“That’s gin,” he said, pointing to one barrel after another. “That’s whiskey. That’s vodka. That one’s whiskey, too.”
Lee — not to be confused with Tennesee’s governor, but rather the owner of Gate 11 Distillery in Chattanooga — is one of more than 40 distillers in Tennessee who are members of the Tennessee Distillers Guild, 30-plus of whom are members of the Tennessee Whiskey Trail, a route that showcases their distilleries and stretches across Tennessee — east and west, north and south — attracting more than 8 million visitors annually.
“When