Cathead Distillery sits in Jackson’s historic Farish Street District, a neighborhood that was once the beating heart of Mississippi’s Black business community. Richard Patrick and Austin Evans founded the distillery in 2010, making it Mississippi’s first legal distillery since Prohibition ended. The name comes from Mississippi Delta blues slang—’cathead’ refers to something large and fluffy, like a big biscuit or a massive storm cloud. They set up shop in a restored 1920s building that once housed a dry goods store, and today you’ll find copper stills humming alongside exposed brick walls and hardwood floors. These guys started with vodka and gin, then expanded into whiskey and some seriously creative liqueurs that capture the flavor of the South.
Patrick, who has a background in business and marketing, partnered with Evans to bring craft distilling back to Mississippi after nearly a century. They spent months navigating state regulations and convincing legislators that craft distilling could work in Mississippi—no small feat in a state where liquor laws were still pretty restrictive. The team includes master distiller Richard Patrick, who learned the craft through trial, error, and a lot of research into traditional Southern spirits. Their philosophy centers on using local ingredients when possible and creating spirits that tell Mississippi’s story, from sweet tea vodka to pecan liqueur that tastes like liquid pralines.
Visitors get a real education in craft distilling along with tastings that showcase how creative you can get with Southern flavors. The tasting room feels like a cross between a neighborhood bar and a chemistry lab, with bottles of experimental spirits lining the shelves and the smell of fermenting grain in the air. You can watch production through large windows, and the staff genuinely enjoys explaining why they decided to distill sweet tea or how they get that perfect peach flavor into their vodka. It’s small-scale enough that you might catch Patrick himself running the tasting room on a Saturday afternoon.
