Company Distilling on building community through whiskey
The new CEO of Tennessee spirits maker Company Distilling, Cassie Halley, on creating spaces for the community to enjoy whiskey and the company’s anti-gatekeeping approach.
Company Distilling was established in 2021 by Jeff Arnett, the former master distiller of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, alongside Kris Tatum, former president of the Tennessee Distillers Guild.
Joining the Tennessee company last year to head up marketing and retail, Cassie Halley stepped into the CEO role last month.
“Before I was in marketing and advertising, I spent the last seven years in hospitality,” Halley tells me over Zoom. She joined Company Distilling from another Tennessee business, Little Arrow Outdoor Resort, where she was the chief marketing officer and chief operating officer.
Company Distilling’s portfolio includes a straight Bourbon finished in maple wood, a straight rye whiskey finished in cherry wood, and a straight Tennessee whiskey finished in apple wood. In addition to whiskey, Company Distilling also makes Ghost Rail Gin and the Ace Gape line of flavoured spirits.
Halley’s hospitality experience complements Company Distilling, which boasts three Tennessee venues – “each unique in their own way”, she says.
Company Distilling launched its first Tennessee site in Townsend in 2022 and opened its second in Thompson’s Station the same year, before adding a facility in Lynchburg in 2025. Each site operates a distillery and tasting room.
“I love how they’ve each become gathering places, not just retail outlets,” she says. “From our beer gardens to our tasting experiences, we’re focused on creating spaces where people want to spend time, learn about our craft and connect with each other.”
There are plans to renovate the Thompson’s Station site to make it bigger, Halley says, with the location also boasting a bar with a retail shop and tasting area.
The Lynchburg location opened in May last year and is the only bar and distillery in Moore County. It is famously known for being a dry county (distillery tours/tastings are allowed), Halley explains, adding they are only able to serve alcohol there because of their own manufacturing licence.
“We can serve cocktails by the glass and we’re right in Jack Daniel’s backyard. It is a huge space with a production facility. We have a huge bar, we have another retail space and we’re opening essentially a fourth room that’ll seat over 100 people to do big tours and events there. It’s an entire new space for the community.”
Distribution plans
In terms of her ambitions for the company, Halley hopes to open up new markets and expand in its current ones. To date, the business distributes to nine states: Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Colorado.
“My goal is ideally for everyone in the nation to know Company Distilling, but we’re not in all of the states yet,” she says. “We’re just in nine right now but we are opening a few more this year.”
From February, the company will enter Louisiana, with markets like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky also potentially on the horizon.
“One of our distribution goals is to get into all the states that touch Tennessee, which are a lot, and I think we’re almost there. Kentucky is a big one because they’re big into Bourbon. What’s important to me is you can open really fast in all the states, but that doesn’t mean people will know who you are and want to take your bottle off the shelf. I think one of my goals is really making sure people know who we are, so that they continually keep choosing to pull us off the shelf over someone else.”
Halley hopes to keep experiences at the forefront of the business and spread the company’s message of ‘spirits worth sharing’ through product development, customer experience and community engagement.
Halley also hasn’t ruled out opening more distilleries. “We’ve talked about it. I think it’s something that our team is interested in. They do so well; people love what we have to offer. I think they love our spaces. And you know, East Tennessee is growing like crazy, so there might be an opportunity where we open another bar in Knoxville or the surrounding areas. I think everything’s kind of on the table right now.”
But for now, Halley says the focus is on distribution and maintaining the business’s strong retail sales.
It’s been a tough time for the whiskey industry with many producers pulling back on their production in the face of lower levels of demand, after the boom that occurred during the pandemic. Despite the numerous challenges facing the industry and being a relatively new business, Company Distilling has continued to grow.
“Luckily, knock on wood, our distilleries have not taken a hit,” she reflects. “I mean our numbers from 2025 were either at or above where they were for 2024. That is really good. And then you know opening in new markets within our distribution, I think some states did better than others, but we did all right there too.”
While neighbouring Jack Daniel’s remains one of the biggest-selling whiskey brands on the market, the industry in Tennessee is growing. There are around 40-plus distilleries who are members of the Tennessee Distillers Guild, and data from the American Craft Spirits Association indicates there were 58 craft distilleries in the state as of August 2025.
Like Kentucky, Tennessee also has its own whiskey trail, which the Guild launched in 2017. To date, the trail features 25 distilleries, including all three of Company Distilling’s sites alongside the likes of Cascade Hollow Distilling Co, Leiper’s Fork and Nelson’s Green Brier.
“We work really closely with the Tennessee Whiskey Trail,” Halley explains, adding the distilleries on the trail support each other through different experiences.
Company Distilling will also join the Trail’s new Cork to Fork initiative, which brings together distilleries and local eateries to create spirit-infused, chef-crafted dishes.
The soon-to-be-launched scheme will see distilleries provide their liquid to Tennessee restaurants who will offer spirits-paired entrées and whiskey-infused desserts, inviting locals to experience the best of the state’s spirits through creative local cuisine.
New Bourbon in the works
Going forward, Halley notes that the company’s main focus will be on whiskey. Arnett is working on the release of a new four-grain Bourbon, Halley says, adding that the former Jack Daniel’s distiller is “always experimenting”. There are at least three different products in the pipeline for 2026, she notes.
Halley describes working with Arnett as an “incredible opportunity”. “He’s a master of his craft – literally. As CEO, my job isn’t to make the Bourbon or gin; it’s to build the operational systems and strategic direction that allow him and our entire team to excel at what they do best. We complement each other well: he brings unparalleled distilling expertise, and I bring organisational and strategic capabilities.”
Regarding the company’s ethos, she says: “We’re explicitly anti-hoarding, anti-gatekeeping. While parts of the Bourbon industry celebrate allocation and scarcity, we celebrate abundance and accessibility.
“Our Bourbon is meant to be opened and enjoyed, not locked away. That positioning might seem subtle, but it fundamentally changes how we approach everything from product to marketing to customer experience.”
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