Tasting Notes – Chicken Cock Rye

This post sponsored by the Glencairn Whisky Glass

I love seeing old brands brought back to the market. Chicken Cock is a very old brand that died out with Prohibition but has been revived recently. The brand was created in 1842 when James A. Miller opened the Chicken Cock Distillery in Paris, Kentucky. The distillery was a fire copper sour mash distillery, which meant they heated the stills with fire, not steam and the stills were copper pot stills. They had warehousing for 30,000 barrels. He ran the distillery until his death in 1860. The distillery and brand then came to G.G. White. The brand was well known, but Prohibition forced the distillery to close and the brand died with the distillery. The brand and remaining barrels of whiskey were sold to American Medicinal Spirits, a company with a license to sell medicinal spirits. There was an attempt to bring the brand back after repeal, but it never gained the support it needed from National Distillers (formerly American Medicinal Spirits) and died as a brand by the end of World War II. About 70 years later, the present owners revived the brand.

The founder and CEO of Grain & Barrel Spirits, Matti Anttila, revived the brand by purchasing barrels of aged whiskey and bottling the whiskey as Chicken Cock Bourbon in 2017. His next step was to work with Bardstown Bourbon Company to contract distill whiskey for the brand. The Bardstown Bourbon Company was created with the idea of being a distillery where people could contract distill whiskey to support the contractor’s own brands. This allows people with a brand to make their own whiskey without having to build a distillery. This two year old Chicken Cock Rye is the result of this contract distilling. The whiskey was made to the specifications laid out by Anttila at the distillery. Think of it as giving the chef at your favorite restaurant the recipe for your favorite dish and letting the chef do the cooking. I like his recipe and his whiskey. I look forward to a four year old expression as I feel it will get even more complex with age.

Chicken Cock Rye

Proof: 90

Age: Two Years Old

Nose: Very soft nose and not overly complex. There is a rye grass herbal note with lots of vanilla, but very little else.

Taste: Much more complex than the nose. Rye grass, vanilla, sweet strawberry or cherry fruit and a hint of spearmint. When tasted with a dried cranberry the fruit becomes like a bubble gum flavor. When tasted with a pecan, the oak finally comes out in the flavor.

Finish: Short with sweet oak and spearmint. The dried cranberry made the finish even shorter and much sweeter with the bubble gum notes lingering in the mouth. The pecan made the finish very long and dry with oak tannins and drives out the mint.

I am pairing this rye whiskey with a Nat Sherman Timeless Panamericana Gordo cigar. I find the smoke to have lots of earthy sweet tobacco notes with a touch of vanilla and caramel with a hint of dried fruit. The Chicken Cock Rye enhances the dried fruit notes in the smoke giving it a little apricot and prune note. The smoke from the cigar reduces the mint flavors and enhances the cherry notes and makes the cherry a sour cherry instead of a sweet cherry. This is a very good pairing.