Sarah Berry Distills it Down

Today I’m thrilled to spend a few minutes with the inspiring Sarah Berry, co-founder and co-owner of Copperhill Brewery and Ocoee River Distilling in Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Sarah and her partners are in a very small club of women distillery owners, but she wasn’t always a business owner or a distiller. She started out, like me, as a teacher. She taught fourth grade for four years and then in outdoor education before finding her way to Copperhill, TN, where in 2021 Sarah and her partner Colleen bought the Copperhill Brewery and later founded Ocoee River Distilling in Ducktown, TN. 

Their delicious beer and spirits are fast becoming a favorite in Tennessee and North Georgia, and they are expanding like yeast in warm water, not just in distribution but also physically, thanks to super cool new homegrown location on the banks of the Ocoee River. 

I met Sarah for the first time, appropriately, at the Fire and Ice Festival, a fun, mid-winter chili and beer fest in downtown Blue Ridge, GA, where she was hanging out at the Copperhill Brewery beer truck. I had heard about Sarah since publishing my debut novel, Back to Blue Holly (about a young woman who opens a brewery against all odds in a historically dry town) and I could not wait to connect with her and learn about her journey into the beer and distillation business. 

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