Georgia Grown Profile: Ivy Mountain Distillery

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Family recipes, home-ground corn staples of whiskey establishment

By Morgan Smith

 

Ivy Mountain Distillery has been in the whiskey making business for more than 20 years. After illegally making liquor decades ago, Carlos Lovell, part owner of Ivy Mountain Distillery in Mt. Airy, Ga., decided he wanted to legally make whiskey two years ago. He enlisted the help of his daughter and fellow owner, Carlene Holder, to help him start his business and acquire the federal, state and local licenses needed.

Ivy Mountain Distillery is a family business through and through, and is continually growing. Having been in operation fewer than two years, the distillery has already undergone an expansion.

 

“Carlos and his brother Fred continue to grind their own corn and make the malt. It’s definitely not a common practice today for distilleries to make [the malt] from scratch,” Holder said.

Ivy Mountain prides itself in its history and old-fashioned beginnings. The recipe for the whiskey is decades old. Lovell uses his father – Big Virg Lovell’s – recipe for his fine “sippin’ whiskey.”

 

All products that go into Lovell’s whiskey are locally grown. With an interest in the farm-to-table movement, Ivy Mountain Distillery believes it’s important to let customers know where the ingredients for the whiskey come from.

 

“Consumers wish to know where their food originates. They are interested in the ‘natural way.’ A visit to the distillery will confirm that Ivy Mountain is part of that thinking as well,” Holder said.

 

The distillery is open to the public for tours twice a month, allowing consumers to get a firsthand look at how the product is made.

 

Even during the years of making illegal liquor, the Lovells were farmers with large crops, poultry and cattle.

 

“The agriculture industry in Georgia has always been of extreme importance to the Lovell family,” Holder said. “Ivy Mountain Distillery is proud to be associated with Georgia Grown. All members of Georgia Grown have a common goal: to promote the natural resources of this great state.”