the complete list of BLACK owned whiskey

Black Owned whiskey Brands are Trending.

Black owned whiskey brands are trending for the same reason as all independent distilleries. The whiskey belt is exploding. Recently relaxed laws have opened up the whiskey business. Entrepreneurs who love bourbon, whiskey, and rye know a good thing when they see it. Some of those entrepreneurs are black business owners; they are killing it, and the media is finally taking note, which is proper.

Be sure to read more after the list—which is right here.

Hang on, aren’t you just two white guys?

Yeah, we are. Like, we’re so white we’re almost transparent. So what business do we have writing this list?

First, nobody else had done it right. Secondly, a lot of people keep hitting our website looking for “black-owned whiskey” and we pay attention to stuff like that. Our readers want to know, so here it is. Your list of distilleries and black-owned whiskey brands.

Black-Owned Whiskey Brands

TENNESEE WHISKEY

Under the guidance of CEO Fawn Weaver and master Blender Victoria Eady Butler. Uncle Nearest set history straight.
Click Here
shadow ridge

VARIOUS SPIRITS

Founded by Sean Hallman in San Diego. Fun fact, Hallman designed the flavor profile for Skrewball.
Click Here

BOURBON

First African Americans to make whiskey in Kentucky since slavery ended.
Click Here
rising sun distillery

FLAVORED SPIRITS

This award-winning Colorado distillery turns out distinguished whiskey and flavored spirits.
Click Here
painted stave

VARIOUS SPIRITS

High quality craft spirits distilled from local grains.
Click Here
greenwood whiskey logo

RYE

These four friends are focused on their single offering: a premium rye.
Click Here
majesty bourbon

BOURBON

Made in Georgia. Ships to half the U.S.
Click Here
wild creek logo

MOONSHINE

Georgia made moonshines of exceptional quality.
Click Here
brough brothers

BOURBON

First black-owned distillery in Kentucky. They focus on bourbon.
Click Here

VARIOUS SPIRITS

An award-winning Indiana distillery with a great business plan and solid booze.
Click Here

BLENDED WHISKEY

DuNord is a powerhouse distiller making a nujmb er of spirits but their Mixed Blood blended whiskey is their flagship.
Click Here
birdie brown

HOOCH

A multi-grain clear whiskey based on a prohibition era recipe. Exceptionally smooth.
Click Here
rex whiskey

RYE

Delicous and sexy as hell, this Rye whiskey is outstanding.
Click Here

TENNESSEE WHISKEY

The namesake spirit of actor Cylk Cozart.
Click Here

SMALL BATCH WHISKEY

Distilled in Iowa, racked in Nashville, TN.
Click Here
whiskey wright

VARIOUS SPIRITS

Edwin Wright started out making very small batches of his bourbon but realized there was a business in it. Thankfully!
Click Here

FLAVORED WHISKEY

They make a Salted Caramel whiskey. I'm not going to judge them for it but I'm judging them for it.
Click Here
hella logo

BITTERS & CANNED DRINKS

These guys make amazing bitters. Buy them. Use them.
Click Here
saint liberty

WHISKEY

Each whiskey's name and perhaps their flavor profile is named after a woman who ran shine surting prohibition.
Click Here
abisola

BLENDED WHISKEY

A lip smacking smooth whiskey developed by the founder Abisola Abidemi.
Click Here

VARIOUS SPIRITS

They don't make whiskey, but we include them for the sake of completion.
Click Here
courage and stone logo

CRAFT COCKTAILS

Outstanding craft cocktails developed by the hilarious Aisha Tyler.
Click Here
exclave logo

BOURBON & RYE

Exclave is serious about using their excellent whiskey to building a better future for black owned businesses.
Click Here

FLAVORED WHISKEY

Jamie Foxx's entry into the celebrity whiskey game. It's a bourbon, but it's a flavored bourbon.
Click Here

FLAVORED WHISKEY

A blended whiskey with honey flavor.
Click Here
den of thieves logo

FLAVORED SPIRITS

These guys aren't kidding. They have a code of honor posted on their front page and it's high-pirate glory.
Click Here
diggs boys

BOURBON

A great whiskey born from a great friendship.
Click Here
dublase logo

WHISKEY

The origin for tbhe name is very interesting and you should go read about it. Sophisticated.
Click Here

BOURBON

Timothy Irving comes from a family tradition of making moonshine.
Click Here
red hazel logo

SPICED WHISKEY

Brother and sister Ty and TK Burtin made this cinnamon laced whiskey so they could craft perfect old fashioneds.
Click Here
virginia black

BLENDED BOURBON

Drake's bourbon, made by Brent Hocking and finished in some kind of magical barrels.
Click Here
ziyad

RYE

Excellent ryes, including a white rye based on a century old moonshine recipe.
Click Here

Because American Whiskey is Black Whiskey

The history of America is the history of our favored spirits, and the history of American distilling is rooted in slavery. Every one of those white guys posing heroically in the origin story of a lauded label is obscuring your view of the enslaved master distiller who developed the whiskey and did all the work. Recently the most successful whisky on earth, Jack Fucking Daniels, publicly acknowledged this in their corporate history which now includes the slave who taught Jack Daniels how to make whiskey: Nathan Green, also known as Uncle Nearest.

Name any historic American whiskey, and it was most likely made by slaves.

George Washington’s whiskey? Made by slaves. James Anderson, a Scot, encouraged Washington, who helped him see the potential. It was an ambitious distillery, and Anderson was in charge. But they staffed it with slaves.

Elijah Craig? Owned 32 people. Brown-Forman acknowledges the role of slavery in the origins of their distillation site in Kentucky, where the Pepper Family made whiskey and owned slaves. Catherine Spears Frye, whose recipes for sweet mash and sour mash whiskey are the oldest known, made a good living selling her spirits, undoubtedly assisted by her slave, “Little Bob,” valued in the tax records at $350.

Black Owned Whiskey Brands are helping fuel the whiskey boom.

This is why I’ve written this article. Our editorial policy is blunt: we don’t tag distillers for age, gender, ethnicity, sexual proclivities, favorite football teams, or how you take your whiskey or race. We believe inclusion starts with disregarding the personal aspects for which someone may be excluded. We don’t have a section called women in whiskey, and we weren’t going to write this article until we looked at the details of our SEO and discovered A LOT of people were finding our site by searching for “black-owned distilleries”. Which is weird, because this is the first time we’ve written those words in an article. So we’re not sure what search terms they landed on here. 

But our data tells a story: people are looking for black owned whiskey brands

I think about 40% of those searches are from white writers trying to keep up, but the rest are from mobile phones and tablets. In other words, they are from a person walking around a liquor store looking to buy some whiskey from a black-owned whiskey brand.

Which kind of means our editorial policy is only half-right

Writing about whiskey culture to whiskey culture means writing to people interested in black-owned whiskey brands. Not doing so means we’re not serving a trending section of our market. That would be a massive fuck-up we’d rather avoid. We want to be on the right side of editorial inclusion and people’s happiness in drinking whiskey. We’re here to help.

So here is our comprehensive list of Black Owned Whiskey Brands.

As of October 2021. We’ll revisit this article every six months to add, subtract, expand, and generally curate this list so stay tuned, stick around, share like crazy, and let us know what you think about the All American Whiskey list of Black-Owned Whiskey Brands

in their own words

Frequently Asked Questions

For the purposes of this article, we’ve only listed whiskey brands where the distillery is owned by a Black American. 

Nope. Not all Black Americans are of African heritage, nor do all black Americans identify with an African origin. The preferred identifier is Black. 

We only count whiskey brands owned by Black Americans.

You can use this list. There are other lists out there too. Check out Whiskey Advocate’s list.

Hell yes. If only to drive more traffic to their brand. These are good whiskeys and these are brilliant distillers. This list does its own little part to promote these black owned whiskey brands.