I drove into Lazy Guy and thought, I must be at the wrong place! What I first saw was a house that had been turned into a bar. It wasn’t until I continued around to the back that I saw the distillery itself. Admittedly, the distillery wasn’t much to look at. It’s an old, 1800’s building that they purchased in 2014 when they began their business. The owner and master distiller, Mark Allen, runs a successful IT company and started Lazy Guy as something to build toward his future retirement. Mark is a purest, making bourbon using traditional methods and the taste of his bourbon reflects that! When talking to him about ageing, I was struck by something he said, “No process that man has created has replicated, to my knowledge, what Mother Nature does in four, six, or ten years.”  

They don’t pre-bottle their bourbon, leaving it in the casks until they need to fill orders. This means that the bourbon is at least two years old, but could be older. Currently, the bourbon they are botting is six years old but as the years go on they want to expand that and bottle only eight to ten-year-old bourbon. Perhaps when they get there they’ll put a different age statement on their label but for now, the label doesn’t say anything (except straight) which means it’s aged at least four years.

The still is an Artisan 325 series 1, 4-plate 325-gallon hybrid reflex column. They began bourbon production in 2014 using filter municipal water in their fermentation tanks and reverse osmosis municipal water for the proof-down. The 53-gallon barrels are stored in two locations that are enclosed but not climate controlled. Their bourbon is non-chill filtered.

The distillery offers tours and tastings as well as a bar that features cocktails made with Lazy Guy products (in Georgia distilleries must produce all the liquor they sell). They do have some retail liquor stores in Georgia carrying their products but the majority of their sales are through the bar and direct bottle sales.