An Uncommon Path

As a senior at the University of Arkansas with a pending degree in finance management, Matt Cunningham had positioned himself to become a Wall Street investment manager and stock trader. However, after an academic trip to the trading floor during his final year, he was more than a little dismayed to realize that his interests were just about anywhere else. Asked about the tie-in between Wall Street and distilling, Cunningham admits, “There really is none. I only know that after being there for a few days, all I wanted to do is to come home. The way I was raised is that you hit a hurdle, you find a way over it and you move on. So, after graduating, I returned to Clarksville and got a job as a fireman.”

Positioned parallel to roaring Interstate 24, Old Glory Distilling Company is the brainchild of Matt Cunningham. Old Glory first began as a concept in 2012, when Cunningham was 22 years old and working as a firefighter. Not a big drinker, but curious by nature and from a self-described family of entrepreneurs, Cunningham began to question exactly how whiskey was made. He started to ardently study the process during his rare downtime and it wasn’t long before he found himself contemplating opening a new distillery in Clarksville. So, he set about traveling to other small distillers to learn all he could about the trade. “There were not many craft distillers around in those days”, Cunningham says, “But everyone I met was so hospitable and excited to share their story.” Cunningham specifically credits the Tomaszewski’s just up the road at M.B. Roland Distillery with being particularly open about their methods. “They were unbelievably helpful”, admits Cunningham, “The whole distilling industry really is a family”.

Old Glory is now the epitome of a family-run business. Cunningham’s dad, who is in construction, helped erect the ever-expanding distillery along with Matt’s brother. Matt himself spends most of his time in production. His wife, with a two-year-old in tow, oversees the Old Glory brand and designed the recently completed and highly praised onsite restaurant. “We wanted the restaurant to sort of create a home place for the brand”, expresses Cunningham. The restaurant’s highlights include a dinner booth mimicking a giant whiskey barrel stored on its side and feature meats that are smoked in-house by employing scrap barrel staves. The expansive menu contains items that are almost entirely made from scratch.

Another unique feature of the Distillery is its dazzling outdoor music venue/amphitheater named “Silo Park”. Cunningham concedes that along with their clear spirit portfolio, the venue served to generate capital during the startup phase by hosting weddings and graduation parties. The distillery now offer a line of three Tennessee Whiskeys and three Bourbons along with six flavors of Moonshine in addition to its clear spirits. In fact, one of the things that Cunningham is most proud of is that OG has never sourced a single drop of any of their juice. Every step of the process has always been executed onsite since the beginning, including grinding grain, cooking, fermenting, distilling, aging, and bottling. Somewhat ironically, OG now has the capacity itself to source whiskey and age barrels for other distillers.

As to the future, Cunningham infers that now that OG has sufficient barrels of properly matured whiskeys ready to bottle, some never-before-attempted ideas may be about to take flight. Cunningham slyly admits that these “could” include finished barrels, ryes, or single malts. “All I ever wanted to do was to create something that Clarksville could be proud of”, says the soft-spoken and ever-humble Cunningham. And from the always-crowded parking lot at Old Glory, it seems quite evident that that goal has already been met in spades.

Contributed by: Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee

with support from M. J. (Michael) Jacobs, Tennessee Whiskey Section Editor, Smyrna, Tennessee