A Weekend Pour in Woodbury

Two great-great-grandsons have revived the spirit of J.B. Kirk with a bourbon rooted in the family record

3:30 p.m. May 31, 2026

Editor’s Note: We’re calling this one a road trip, but truth be told, it is more of a Saturday drive. Woodbury sits only about an hour from Lynchburg – close enough to ease over, have a look around, and be back home before supper. But do not let the short drive fool you. The story behind J.B. Kirk bourbon is one of the best bottle stories still sitting on a local shelf: a Woodbury name, a family legacy, and a bourbon that has found its way back to the place where the story started.

DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor

There was a time when the name J.B. Kirk meant whiskey in Woodbury.

John B. “J.B.” Kirk was a Cannon County farmer, distiller, and saloon owner whose name turned up in old newspaper accounts of whiskey making, liquor fights, court trouble, and the growing pressure of Tennessee’s temperance movement.

Then Tennessee went dry, and the J.B. Kirk bottle disappeared.

More than a century later, his great-great-grandsons have brought it back.

J.B. Kirk Bourbon Whiskey has been revived by Austin Cook and his cousin, Marty Cook, both great-great-grandsons of Kirk. The modern bourbon is distilled, aged, and bottled in Tennessee, made from Tennessee-grown grain and sold only in the state.

For Austin Cook, the project began with a family story he could not quite leave alone.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the distilling process, knowing that my great-great-grandfather was a distiller in Woodbury, Tennessee,” Cook said.

Years ago, he began reaching out to Tennessee distilleries, asking whether he could come help long enough to learn the work. Then, while visiting a distillery near his Nashville home, he recognized the owner from a book he had about Tennessee distillers.

Cook offered to pay the man to let him work there for a week.

Instead, the owner pointed him toward a distilling course scheduled for the following week. Cook signed up expecting a classroom full of people learning the science behind whiskey.

“It was just me with the owner and his two employees taking me through the whole process from turning on the boiler without blowing myself up to mash tuns and spirit runs,” Cook said.

Before long, Cook said, he and his cousin were reviving the J.B. Kirk brand.

Whiskey on the Square

Kirk was born in 1854 and made whiskey in Woodbury in the late 1800s.

Property records and historic newspaper accounts collected by the family show Kirk grew grain, operated a gristmill, and made whiskey on his Cannon County farm. He also owned property in Woodbury, including a saloon on the Square where his whiskey was sold.

Cook said Kirk owned 38 properties in Woodbury, including the entire eastern side of the Square.

The newspaper accounts show a business tied closely to the life, and sometimes the trouble, of the town.

In 1898, an argument over whiskey at Kirk’s saloon turned deadly after a bartender attempted to remove a customer. The customer drew a knife and cut the bartender’s throat. The bartender died, and the suspect was later captured in McMinnville and moved to Nashville amid fears of mob violence in Woodbury.

Four years later, a storm swept away 30 barrels of whiskey from Kirk’s distillery. Newspaper coverage from that same period described Kirk as a leading saloon keeper as Woodbury wrestled with the question of liquor sales.

The Legal Trouble Followed.

Newspaper accounts report whiskey discovered near Kirk’s residence, followed by federal court proceedings. In 1906, a Nashville newspaper listed Kirk among four moonshiners pardoned by Tennessee Gov. John I. Cox.

Kirk had operated legally as a distiller and liquor seller. But by the early 1900s, Tennessee was steadily restricting where liquor could be made and sold. In 1909, Tennessee outlawed the production of alcohol statewide, shutting down legal distilling more than a decade before national Prohibition began.

The J.B. Kirk operation did not return.

“We’ve always assumed our great-great-grandfather J.B. Kirk did not have the luxury of waiting 8 to 10 years for barrels to age to make money, especially when the laws changed in Tennessee and he went from being a legal distiller to a moonshiner overnight,” Cook said.

After his Woodbury distilling years, the family history places Kirk in Murfreesboro, where he became superintendent of Evergreen Cemetery and lived with his family in a house on the cemetery grounds.

Cook said he knows of only three surviving pre-Prohibition J.B. Kirk bottles: two in Woodbury and one in Murfreesboro. His family does not own any of them.

The Clue was Wheat

Cook did not find a surviving J.B. Kirk recipe listing exact percentages for a mash bill.

He found something else. Agricultural production records showed that Kirk grew wheat rather than rye on his farm. “We were able to see he farmed wheat and not rye,” Cook said.

Today’s J.B. Kirk bourbon is made with corn, wheat, and malted barley. Cook said the family is keeping the percentages private, but the use of wheat came directly from that historic record.

“All the grain in J.B. Kirk is grown and distilled in Tennessee,” he said.

The bourbon is aged for four years and bottled at 90 proof.

“As for me, I’ve always enjoyed a younger whiskey,” Cook said. “Four years seemed to be a sweet spot for this mash bill.”

Cook said the bourbon goes through charcoal mellowing, but the family chose to market its flagship release as “bourbon” rather than Tennessee whiskey, in part because it’s just what the family has always called it.

The current whiskey is made with a Tennessee distilling partner, aged, and bottled in-state.

Cook is also working to preserve the history beyond the bottle. His book, Whiskey of Tennessee: The Story of J.B. Kirk, is tentatively scheduled for release in October.

Cook may not own one of the three old J.B. Kirk bottles he knows are still out there. Two of those, he said, remain in the town where his great-great-grandfather once made and sold whiskey.

But more than a century after the original operation went quiet, the company says J.B. Kirk Bourbon is once again being sold in Woodbury.

Where We Eating?

It's a hop, skip, and jump to Woodbury, but you know we're going to graze.

Passing through Manchester on the way, there is no shortage of good places to eat. Ramsey Grill, Jiffy Burger, or J&G Pizza and Steak House – pick one and you will not leave hungry. (I've become obsessed with Ramsey's burgers and fries.)

Heading home, stop by Sophia’s just off the Square in Woodbury. The family-friendly sports bar serves appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, and country-style meals. (Chicken-fried steak is the play.)