Expanding the Tennessee Whiskey experience

The Whiskey Trailhead at the Welcome Center in Lynchburg aims to make Lynchburg and surrounding counties a must-visit destination for whiskey tourism.

As Executive Director and CEO of the South Central Tennessee Tourism Association, Ryan French oversees the Welcome Center/Whiskey Trailhead in Lynchburg. He also serves as vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce.

French said every initiative ties back to a broader vision, and he highlighted new initiatives to enhance visitor engagement, including new Tennessee Whiskey history markers and a whiskey-themed mural program – along the lines of the Tennessee Music Pathways project.

"We also have a really cool program that I'm excited about," French said. "We're going to paint three murals that are going to celebrate Tennessee whiskey history and the production of Tennessee whiskey."

“We’re actually in the process of having one of those murals in Lynchburg,” he revealed.

The murals will be geo-tagged, allowing visitors to check in via an app and receive a poker chip as a collectible.

The murals serve a strategic economic purpose beyond aesthetics. For example, one mural in Fayetteville will drive traffic from Pritchard’s Distillery in Kelso into the city’s downtown area. Another in Wartrace will highlight the town’s historical connection to whiskey transportation via railroads.

“We’re taking these visitation opportunities and moving them into small towns, giving people a reason to explore beyond the obvious stops," French said.

"From an economic development standpoint, we're in the background saying, 'OK, how can we make this mural program economically viable or a boost to the economy?'"

"The thing that's cool about Wartrace is we're going to be able to plant one of those Tennessee whiskey history markers, and there's already a Tennessee Music Pathways marker there," French noted. "So we're then introducing them to different opportunities to kind of go out and explore a little bit more."