Clinton Dugan
Shortbarrel/Old Fourth Distillery
Clinton Dugan calls himself a tinkerer of flavor and a collector of tiny rituals: a morning that becomes a meeting, the last sip that turns a day into memory. In Atlanta’s warehouse districts, among the kettles and charred oak, Dugan has learned to listen to whiskey the way others learn to listen to stories: by paying attention to the pauses.
Like many successful distillers, Clinton’s path to whiskey wasn’t really tidy. He was born in southern Ohio and raised just across the river in Northern Kentucky. As an adult, Dugan studied at Kent State University. He cut his teeth in brand building and digital marketing, and spent a dozen years building well-known marques behind the scenes before his idea of making whiskey migrated from hobby to obsession. That’s when a gentle myth originated about how Shortbarrel began: three friends, a chance conversation in Louisville, and a few barrels bought on a lark that turned into a brand. Clinton, Adam Dorfman, and Patrick Lemmond started Shortbarrel while still holding day jobs, trading spreadsheets and meetings for barrel picks and late-night tastings. The company’s founding is one of those modern small-business folktales, equal parts serendipity, self-confidence, and stubbornness. Soon, the name “Shortbarrel” was chosen as the moniker for the new venture. A “shortbarrel” is a barrel that, once opened for bottling, is discovered to have lost over 50% of its contents to angel’s share. Due to higher contact with air and oak, the whiskey inside ages differently, developing uniquely and powerfully. The few bottles filled from that liquid tell a story of aging, evaporation, and a changing climate that are absolutely peculiar to the specific place and time.
After successfully navigating the pandemic era, in February 2023, Shortbarrel made a move that defined Clinton’s public life: the acquisition of Atlanta’s Old Fourth Distillery, which had been Atlanta’s first distillery since Prohibition. For Clinton, it was more than a purchase; it felt like stewardship. He stepped into a neighborhood brand that had weathered its own challenges and found an environment fertile for experimentation. Announcements after the acquisition promised continuity for Old Fourth’s lineup and team, and also hinted at new collaborations and distribution moves that would carry the distillery’s work beyond its Atlanta roots. It was, in one swoop, both the rescue of a respected old local brand and an exciting opportunity for expansion for both partners.
For 2025, Shortbarrel has planned its most ambitious move yet: to open a flagship bar and retail shop in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, sharing Atlanta-made spirits with the world’s busiest terminal.
The press release for Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) airport read:
‘Old Fourth Distillery + Kitchen: tucked inside Atlanta’s historic Old 4th Ward, the distillery will bring award-winning spirits and hand-crafted libations to complement a chef-driven menu celebrating the best Georgia has to offer’
At the distillery, Clinton is the sort of leader who moves between the micro and the myth. He checks proofs with the same curiosity he uses to read a customer’s tasting notes. He’ll stand in the whiskey aisle, someone once wrote, noting how people shop as if watching a ritual unfold. It’s a line he repeats with a smile: if you make spirits, learn how people choose them. And Clinton has a word for large legacy brands: evolve or watch your market share continue to shrink to smaller craft distillers. Dugan says that while it is true that overall hard alcohol consumption is down, many craft brands such as Shortbarrel are growing at a healthy 7% per year. This, says Dugan, is a result of community connection, rather than shelf placement. “People are still spending, but they’re spending with intention—on authenticity, storytelling, and craft,” Seth explains. His proof is in the recent opening of Shortbarrel’s fifth state, Texas. Seven pallets of Georgia whiskey sold out in 48 hours—before many disappointed drinkers even knew the brand had landed in the state.
Balancing out the hectic, driven life of a distiller of a much-sought-after brand, Clinton is also married to Amber Dugan, and is a “girl-dad”— a joyous family life that exists, sometimes in conflict with, but often in parallel to long nights in the barrel house.
The balance in Dugan’s life shows in the way he talks about work. In podcasts and interviews, he’s reflective, sharing small histories of barrels and the logistics that make a label sing. He is as interested in the texture of a story as he is in the chemistry of a mash bill. He often walks listeners through what happens when a brand grows from three friends and a few barrels to a full production slate and a distribution plan. The voice is recognizable: practical, curious, and stubbornly fond of the people who keep the craft alive, and always sensitive to his family, his friends, his future. Because on quieter days, behind the polish of public relations and tasting notes, Clinton is a father. He posts small domestic snapshots — a hand on a child’s shoulder, a caption that reads like a private joke — and those images humanize an industry that can otherwise read as glossy. They remind the public that the man who tastes casks at 47% ABV also changes diapers, reads board books, and packs lunches. It’s a humbling counterbalance: the slow alchemy of aging whiskey and the rapid, daily alchemy of parenting.
If you meet Clinton at a tasting, you’ll notice a few habits. He doesn’t rush a pour. He compares the liquid to memory: the oaky-vanilla essence present in nearly every good bourbon, the tannins from a good barrel, the slight rye heat that lives behind a throat’s first note. He loves to tell the tale of the first barrel-pick that didn’t go as planned, the event where “no one showed up,” and the slow, stubborn scaling that turned embarrassment into an eventual community. Those narratives sit at the center of his public myth, and they’re part of what makes him a storyteller as much as a distiller.
So, a storyteller who listens to whiskey, an impatient marketer who learned to wait for barrels, a husband and father who still posts the odd candid to Instagram, and the legacy distillery he kept alive for a city that loved it. That is the story Clinton Dugan tells the world: that craft spirits are communal, that brands are built by people who keep showing up, and that sometimes the happiest accidents — three friends, a midnight barrel pick — become the longest, sweetest experiments, and the outcome is some of the South’s best craft whiskey.
Sources:
Shortbarrel Distilling/home, shortbarrelbourbon.com
VoyageATL, “Meet Clinton Dugan,” voyageatl.com, February 10, 2022
Linkedin.com, Clinton Dugan’s profile
Instagram.com, Clinton Dugan’s profile
Spotify Podcast 241, “The Evolution of Shortbarrel,” August 27, 2023
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
