Page 41 - Blairsville NCG 2022

Five years later, Grandaddy Mimm’s is a staple in Blairsville, a place for the
community to gather for music and fellowship and a tourist attraction at the same time.
Townsend started producing about 40-50 cases per month. Today, Grandaddy Mimm’s is
growing and producing between 1,500 and 2,000 cases each month and sending them to
Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, and Georgia.
“We’re a lot farther along than we thought we’d be,” Townsend said. “It’s been really
cool. All the county officials, Lamar Paris (county commissioner), the Chamber, Mayor
(Jim) Conley, they’ve all been behind it.”
Townsend said he wants to use the distillery’s success to make Blairsville better, also
in the tradition of his Grandaddy Mimm.
“My grandfather made a lot of money in moonshining, and he would help people
with it,” Townsend said. “He’d buy clothes or food for people who needed it. He’d
help the churches. He was a philanthropist. … We’ve tried to carry on that tradition
with the community.”

Mimm also ran illegal gambling in the back room
of Border Hop, a beer joint he owned in the 1940s.
Townsend has a still-working nickel slot machine from
Border Hop at the distillery.
Moonshine and country music make for the
perfect marriage.
“Country music and drinking have always
gone together,” Townsend said.
So when his friend and financial planner
Jack Keeter in California saw the money a
client was making in the liquor business,
he suggested Townsend dig up Mimm’s old
recipe and try his hand at a new venture.
“He said, ‘there’s stupid amounts of
money in liquor,’” Townsend said.
Townsend called his uncle George,
gathered all the information he could about
Mimm’s recipe, which was renowned as the
best in the mountains, and opened Grandaddy
Mimm’s in Blairsville, where Townsend grew up
hearing stories about his grandfather.

Grandaddy Mimm’s Distilling Co. 37