Local Bourbon Makes Its Way to France
The latest installment in the St. Mary’s Around the World series highlights an award-winning farm distillery in Hollywood, MD.
Three barrels of St. Mary’s County’s Tobacco Barn Distillery bourbon recently landed on the beaches of Normandy.
St. Mary’s Around the World features a mix of global brands rooted in the county.
On May 13, 2024, the distillery loaded three 15-gallon barrels of Maryland bourbon on a World War II historic DC-3 (Placid Lassie) at the Capt. Frances Walter Duke Regional Airport in California, MD. The bourbon barrels traveled on board the DC-3 to the 80th Anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, stopping in five countries on the way, including Canada, Iceland, England, and Germany, before arriving at its final destination in France.
Tobacco Barn Distillery is a ground-to-glass distillery on Hollywood Leonardtown Road. All of the ingredients used to make their bourbons and whiskies are sourced from their farm or from other local farmers and suppliers in Maryland.
The distillery is owned by Scott Sanders, Sean Coogan, and Dan Dawson, the latter of whom operates the farm — family-owned for more than 100 years — where all of the corn for their winning bourbon is grown. Tobacco Barn was named America’s best farm distillery in 2023 by the American Craft Spirits Association.
The St. Mary’s County Economic Development Department has created an interactive map that shares success stories from businesses around the county.
For example, there’s Parraid, the small products-oriented business headquartered in Hollywood, and its Rugged USB 3.0 Hub that was used on the Perseverance Mission to Mars in 2020 and accompanied the SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket on its mission to the Moon in 2024. And Velos Rotors, an international company with operations in St. Mary’s providing drone helicopters for industrial application for agriculture, search and rescue, delivery, and surveillance customers all over the world.
