The History of J.B. Kirk

In 1902, a Tennessee newspaper reported “Woodbury has long been known as a bad place.”¹ To the casual reader, it was just another footnote in Tennessee’s wild and unruly past. But for my family, it was personal because we were featured in the headlines. In the late 1800s, my great-great-grandfather J.B. Kirk was a popular whiskey distiller and saloon owner in Woodbury, Tennessee.

The drive to Woodbury from Nashville today is serene – a soft ribbon of highway cutting through rolling hills and sleepy farmland that appears as though it has not been changed in centuries. I’ve always enjoyed the forty-five minute drive once I get to Tennessee’s oldest road, US-70², which leads directly to the heart of downtown Woodbury. As I drive towards the rising sun, coffee in hand, I daydream about a time when the paved streets were dirt roads filled with wagon ruts. Pulling into the now peaceful Woodbury, it’s the quintessential small town with a public square featuring antique stores, a coffee shop, and a courthouse that once bore witness to frontier justice. J.B. Kirk owned the buildings on the east side of the public square where the coffee shop now sits. It’s otherworldly to look out over the public square with the landmark hill in the backdrop knowing that my family absorbed this very image over 150 years ago.

My family settled in Tennessee back when local natural resources were a vital part of the distilling process. J.B. Kirk grew the grain for his mash bill, used the limestone filtered water from his spring that never ran dry, and utilized the diverse Tennessee weather for his aging whiskey. It sounds simple enough, but from growing crops to aging barrels, depending on Tennessee weather is risky business. In 1902, J.B. Kirk was reminded that he was distilling at the mercy of Mother Nature when a storm swept away thirty barrels of whiskey from his distillery.³ But more times than not, the volatile Tennessee climate turned out to be a hidden ally, breathing life and complexity into the barrels of aging whiskey, shaping the soul of his spirit.

As I entered the boutique on the southeast corner of the square I pictured a rustic building that once echoed with vibrant frontier activity. The person working the register turned out to be the owner of the store, so I showed her a family portrait of J.B. Kirk, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Ruth. My great-grandmother Ruth is about 10 years old in the photo. She is standing with two big bows securing her pigtails while holding a fully extended fan. Elizabeth is standing behind Ruth in a late 1800s black dress and has a slightly annoyed look on her face. I like to think it was due to an argument over the fan being in the picture. J.B. is seated beside Ruth holding his fedora just below his waist. He’s tall, skinny, has aged tired eyes and a straight face hidden behind his handlebar mustache that falls below his chin. They had Ruth when J.B. was 48. He was born before the Civil War and the age difference is visible in the picture. I told the owner that J.B. Kirk owned the building where her boutique was located in the late 1800s and owned a saloon next door. He was even referred to as the “leading saloon keeper.”⁴ What I did not mention was the tragic event that took place close to where we were standing. During a summer night at Kirk’s Saloon in 1898, an argument over whiskey broke out between the bartender and a customer. The bartender came from behind the bar to kick the customer out when the customer withdrew a knife and cut the bartender’s throat. He slid down a barrel and died moments later and the customer fled.⁵ Three days later he was caught in McMinnville, Tennessee and was transferred to a jail in Nashville for fear that a mob would break into the Woodbury jail and kill the inmate.⁶

The stories I grew up listening to sounded like tall tales: Vandals at Kirk’s Distillery,⁷ murder at Kirk’s Saloon,⁸ secret deals with the Attorney General⁹, and pardons from the Governor himself¹⁰. Even though he was a licensed distiller¹¹ and had his tippling license¹² to sell liquor, courtrooms knew his name like a regular.

To me, as a child riding through the winding backroads with my family, those tales were more treasure map than history. I dreamed of finding an empty bottle of J.B. Kirk hidden by the gristmill. I wondered what the shape of the bottle looked like, did he use a paper label or engraved glass? Those family trips are distant memories now. I’ve journeyed all over Woodbury, Murfreesboro, Nashville and beyond, searching dust-covered shelves and timeworn antique stores. I’ve turned over more bottles and vintage whiskey jugs than I know. Decades have passed, I’ve come up dry, I may have aged, but the dream is still alive.

As I continued my search in another antique store on the north side of the Woodbury square, my mind began to wonder again. What if there’s someone in our family, generations from now, that is a history lover treasure hunter like myself, searching for the lost treasure of their heritage that was founded by their ancestor, and continued by their great-great-grandfather. Will they have the opportunity to taste the past – not just the whiskey but the memory itself? Maybe my great-great-grandkids will stumble upon a bottle of J.B. Kirk and brush aside the collection of dust, grazing our faded fingerprints on the glass from when we held that bottle. Then they might open the bottle that’s been sealed like a time capsule, smelling the same fragrance their ancestors did when we first opened the aged barrel, and taste the same bourbon whiskey that we tasted as we filled that very bottle 100 years earlier.

Today we proudly announce that J.B. Kirk’s legacy lives on. Our small batch made from scratch bourbon whiskey is now available. Every ingredient in J.B. Kirk has been grown and distilled in Tennessee ever since the brand was founded in the 1800s. J.B. Kirk is still 100% family owned and remains in Tennessee, where it is exclusively sold.

On every bottle is a story — our story:

Our family history runs deep in Tennessee. In the late 1800s, J.B. Kirk crafted and distributed some of the finest whiskey in Cannon County. When prohibition forced the closure of his distillery, he relocated his family to an unusual abode – the superintendent’s home nestled within Evergreen Cemetery in Murfreesboro. Tragically, just a year later in that very home, he lost his daughter Ruth due to complications giving birth to my grandfather. With the steadfast support of his remaining daughters, J.B. raised my grandfather, who would go on to become a prominent preacher throughout Tennessee. My grandfather lived a remarkable life, reaching the age of 96, and now rests in the very cemetery where he was born, alongside his wife of 70 years, the mother he never met, and his grandparents, Elizabeth and J.B. Kirk. Today, our family has revitalized the legacy of our great-great-grandfather’s bourbon whiskey. And so, as the amber liquid glimmers in this glass, it embodies the spirit of generations – love, loss, and resilience – uniting the past and present in every heartfelt sip, a tribute to the enduring legacy of our family.

So here I sit, where saloons once thundered, where hearts broke and healed, where dreams fermented and matured. With every pour of J.B. Kirk bourbon, we raise a glass not only to the man — but to the spirit of a place and a people that refused to be forgotten.

The past lives on. You can taste it.

– President & great-great-grandson of J.B. Kirk

J.B. Kirk is distributed by Ajax Turner. Drink Responsibly.