89. Chattanooga Whiskey 99 Rye - Tennessee Rye Malt

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

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And I'm by Kiatt.

And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, another craft distillery. The past couple of weeks we've been trying some ryes. This is our second rye in a row. Chattanooga whiskey.

Yeah, like Chattanooga choo-choo. Chattanooga choo-choo. So yeah, they sent us this rye. It's one of their experimental ryes, one of their first actually. It's 99 proof. You know, hey guys down there in Chattanooga, we got to say thank you for sending this to us to review. We always enjoy people sending us their whiskey to talk about. Beautiful bottle by the way, raised lettering on it and stuff. Beautiful color, the picture on it shows the Tennessee River running through the valley there.

Now these guys do it right. Now they've got an experimental still and you know they're constantly stepping out of the box and trying new stuff and this is I guess this product is now part of their main offering but it came from their experimental collection and so they're having a lot of fun down there.

Most definitely. Not an overly pricey raw whiskey. Suggested retail is $39.99. That's a pretty fair price for a craft distillery.

Yeah, I think that's one thing to be said for Chattanooga. Their whiskies are very affordable. They're in that sort of mid-price range. Craft distilleries got to charge a little bit more, but they're not up there in the $50, $60 range.

Well, some of them are more than that. We've seen craft distilleries be all the way up into the hundreds, but I think this is that sweet spot for a craft distillery right there in that $40 range. Guys like me and you can afford this most definitely.

Well, they say there's four different grains in here, but this is a rye malt whiskey. In addition to the rye malt, they've got a blend of slow roasted and drum roasted malts as well.

They age it in 53 gallon charred oak barrels, and then they age it for greater than three years.

Do me a favor, read the match bill off the bottom.

Malted rye, yellow corn, caramel-malted rye, and caramel-malted barley. Caramel-malted barley.

Now Chattanooga whiskey is known for Tennessee high malt whiskey.

Let's nose this thing and see what it... Definitely has that floral rye nose on it, which you'd expect from a rye whiskey. Not overpowering. Not a lot of alcohol coming out of there.

I'm getting that cinnamon and rye and sort of rye spices on the nose. A little bit more baking spice, like nutmeg. Not really getting much in the way of like, you know,

Touch of anise or licorice, not much.

Mostly baking spices, like you say. I'm not getting any dill or cedar or anything like that. No cedar? No cedar.

Now, if everybody doesn't know when we're talking about cedar, one of the first episodes I did with Jim, he said he got cedar and I asked him, he chewed on cedar staves. And now I'm kind of used to that. I get, as my whiskey knowledge has grown a little bit, I can see somebody smelling that cedar in something and they're getting, being around cedar trees or something. The best thing is juniper cedar. If you took juniper, the berries off there, rubbed them and smelt that, you might get a little bit of that from a rye whiskey.

So, I mean, that's what happens when you drink whiskeys. You build that library of knowledge in your brain, those tastes and aromas that you are able to identify later on down the road. It seems like they come out in batches, right? But that's just you developing your palate and developing your sensory. And you know, it's just the way it works.

What I would say about this on this nose, it's not as pungent as some of the other ryes we've drank lately where it's almost overpowering and it makes you not want to drink. This right here has a beautiful nose on it to me.

Yeah, it has a great nose. Not too much alcohol on it. It doesn't have a bite on the nose, but I mean, it doesn't have a bite on the nose. It's nice and gentle. It does have a spice to it. And when you're sniffing it, you're like, you know what? I really hope the palate follows that.

Let's taste this thing. Let's taste it. We talked about this before, but I get a little black licorice on this.

Yeah, I think a little bit more on the palate.

You ever go to your grandparents' house and they have that black liquorice sitting in that candy dish?

Yeah, and definitely as I sit here with it and I let it just sort of rest in my palate, that black liquorice is really starting to come out.

It really is. Was it so old though at your grandparents' house that it was like rock? I can't remember.

But yeah, the palate's different than the nose. I think it's a little more baking spice on the nose, a little more licorice, anise on the palate.

I've got to say for a rye whiskey, it's very complex. It's got different layers to it. A little bit of citrus in there maybe. I want to say like a tangerine citrus.

Yeah, I mean even the whorehounds coming out of it now a little bit. This is fairly complex and it develops. I think it develops. I think the longer it sits on your palate. Now, it doesn't have a big hug and the finish is just kind of medium on it.

But that palate keeps changing and keeps developing. Now, do you know if they're using a sour mash or a sweet mash there? I don't. You know, as our friend Pat Heist was talking about a sweet mash versus a sour mash, that sour mash could give you that Kentucky hug where a sweet mash is a little bit more smoother and it will give you that feeling of acid reflux.

I would say they're probably doing a sour mash and they're tasting those, they mentioned sort of an herbal. Herbal I think more like tea and grass and kind of... lemon verbena maybe or something, things like that.

I don't know if it's herbal or not, but I'm probably one of the last humans on the face of the earth to like black licorice. I mean, that's not something you see too often. You almost got to search that stuff out. Kind of like whore hounds. It's not a candy that you see too often anymore. I like that in my whiskey though. I do like that in my whiskey. Yeah. This is a great expression. I got to salute them for always keeping to their, their high balls up there on the Tennessee river, doing some great things out of there. I can't, can't wait till we can actually sit down with them and do a full, full episode with them. But this stuff, so this finishes long. I would call this, a sipper, sit down and share it with a friend. Heck, I might even give this to somebody that is a big ride drinker like Jim Shannon.

Yeah. I think if I received this bottle as a gift, I would be tickled to death. I think I'd be tickled to death. I think I'd be really happy to have received it and I would definitely enjoy it. I'm not going to call the finish long. You thought it was long. I think it's more medium, but we differ there. I think that there's not a great big giant hug on it though. This is probably a year round ride for me. It's got a little more corn in, a little sweeter. I think this could stand up to cocktails wonderfully, you know, at the price point. Probably not a bad choice for cocktails, but I would tend to want to sip it myself.

I wouldn't call it summer sipper, fall sipper. Year round. Yeah. It's a great whiskey. When I say the log finish, I guess I'm getting, after it's set on my paddle a little bit, I'm getting this like spicy honey, almost like I've got some jalapeno honey and it's got that little bit of kick to it on the tongue, but not that, like you said, not a Kentucky hug. So I like it. That's saying a lot from the professor, we King of Kentucky. Yeah. Yeah. We, we're going to keep drinking these rice too.

But 99 proof, about three years old minimum, minimum of three year old whiskey out of Chattanooga, just like Adam. Out of Chattanooga. Out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. And it's a good high malt rye. I think it stands out as something a little bit different than what you find in the market. A little bit sweeter, got a little bit of corn sweetness on it. I missed that on the label, but it's there.

So if you're out there and you want us to review your whiskey, your craft distillery, shoot us an email. team at the bourbonroad.com, Mike at the bourbonroad.com, or Jim at the bourbonroad.com, info at the bourbonroad.com. Shoot us an email, one of us will get back to you. Send us your whiskey. We'll review it. That's right.

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