Distillery owners want to develop historic site as attraction
The family attempting to open the first distillery in the Shoals wants to utilize an old family recipe to produce a distilled spirit they hope will allow them to develop a tourist attraction
The family attempting to open the first distillery in the Shoals wants to utilize an old family recipe to produce a distilled spirit they hope will allow them to develop a tourist attraction that has ties to the area's Native American History.
Billy and Joanna Dawson are in the final stages of opening Dawson Distillery, which will produce LaGrange Mountain Spirits. The distillery is near the historic LaGrange College site in rural Colbert County.
Billy Dawson is the son of Pride Dawson and the nephew of the Dewitt and Bobby Dawson, whose names made headlines around the region in the 1970s. The Dawson gang as they were known were said to be involved in bank robbery, gambling, bootlegging whisky and other criminal activity. Billy Dawson was also convicted of bank robbery when he was in his 20s.
Billy Dawson said his first job was helping run a still with his uncles when he was 10-years-old.
What they plan to do with the legal brew, however, is turn a negative from the past into a positive for the future.
Joanna Dawson said the plan is to use the proceeds from the sale of the distilled spirits, which would be made available to retailers through the Alabama Beverage Control Board, to develop a beautiful, scenic area adjacent to the distillery.
Not far from the facility is a historic site known as the LaGrange Rock Shelter, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. And archeological dig beginning in 1972 and ending in 1875 under the direction of Charles Hubbert and Vernon J. Knight, yielded charcoal samples that were radiocabon dated to approximately 11,280 BC.
They would like to get the distillery up and running and use the revenue to develop the Rock Shelter site as an adjacent tourist attraction.
Near the rock shelter at the base of steep limestone cliffs are two springs where Billy Dawson has directed water to a holding tank and with the help of gravity, to the distillery building. While the limestone will help purify the water, Dawson said, it will still pass through a filtration system once it enters the building.
"Water is the number one ingredient," Dawson said. "The taste of the water impacts the taste of the moonshine."
He said the springs were once used to water trees in the King Apple and Peach orchard that once occupied the area.
Dawson said initially, they plan to produce two distilled spirits, one made from corn and another made from rye. Charles "Buzz" Michael, Joanna Dawson's brother, said the still has an infusion system where they can add dried fruit to produce a flavored spirit. Michael will be the main distiller.
