Chattanooga Whiskey Barrel Finishing Series Islay Scotch Cask Finish

Nose of rich vanilla ice cream and faint hint of ethanol The front of the palate is toasted marshmallow flowing into a mid palate that gives me the sweet vanilla ice cream and the back of the palate has some pepper and spice maybe clove or allspice Finish has a bit of campfire and barrel spice with a medium length. This is very enjoyable but defies a category, its not a bourbon, its not a scotch its really just its own thing and I'm glad I have a bottle, well done Chattanooga

This is my introduction to Chattanooga distillery, and I won’t bury the lede by stating plainly and upfront that it will not be my last. I love Scotch. I’m developing a very deep relationship with bourbon and American whisky. I saw this and realized I had to give it a go. Nose takes some work to hunt out, but is worth it and very unique: Cedar chest, pine tar, powdered candy (runts, or maybe sugar straws?) and a running undercurrent of Old English furniture polish. Push too deep in the glass though and you’ll be quickly reminded this is young, and the ethanol is happy to say hello. Palate opens warm and crawls up the tongue dropping flavors along the way…pine and honey at the front, a splash of salt then caramel at the midway point, and finally a dryness almost like grapefruit at the close, all underscored by smoke and just the faintest bit of peat sweetness. I’ll admit that it took me a while to warm to this. It’s not bourbon. It’s not Scotch. At times it tastes similar to one or the other but that’s as close as it gets. I usually like bourbon for rich sweetness and Scotch for either herbal or meatiness (and of course the peat!), and this is neither. But I’m (now) okay with that, because overall I think it’s pretty damn good.

I don’t really get it , I was excited to get this bottle and a big fan of Chattanooga but this is so over powered with smoke taste and char , it taste like whiskey that was left in front of a campfire all night with the smoke going directly into the glass then mixing a charred burnt wood in it . I’ve tried numerous attempts to revisit this and just can’t get past it , is this what scotch typically taste like ? If so it’s trash 🗑. Maybe I’ll try it in a cocktail .

The Devil went down to Georgia. By Devil here, of course, I mean my wife. She went to visit family, and before she left, she said, is there any whisky down there you can't get up here that you might want? I said, "Keep an eye out for Chattanooga, particularly the Islay finished version." I've wanted to get my hands on some Chattanooga ever since I saw this horror movie After Midnight (the movie is a great Horror Romance that, well, if you like horror isn't a bad one to watch around Valentine's Day...let's just leave it at that). Anyway, the guys in that movie go to the bar and drink Chattanooga 1816, and for some reason, maybe just the shape of the bottle or maybe because of how much I liked the movie, I wanted some too. And while my wife was down there, she came across the Islay finished so she picked up two bottles, and when she went to the counter, the guy told her that they had some Chattanooga Founder's Reserve in the back, so she came home with three bottles. Major score there. And last night I popped open the Islay. Damn this is good. I mean, it's right up my alley. Hudson released a rye last year that was finished in Islay barrels, and I enjoyed that, and I gave it a high score because of just how unique it was. But this one, this Chattanooga Islay finished is better. At first, I had trouble telling why I liked it so much. The nose was amazingly sweet and savory at the same time, but while I could tell that the savory was coming from the peat smoke influence, I couldn't tell what the sweetness was. It was candied and fruity, but it took me a minute to place the candied fruitiness as banana because I've never had a whisky that mixed those two aromas. I suppose you could also describe it as bubble gum, like a nice wad of Hubba Bubba. It's also got a nice woodiness counterbalanced with spice on the palate with a nice lingering peppery finish. This is one of those whiskies where, now that it's open, I'm going to want to drink it above all the other whiskies I have open, but then, it'll go too quick and I won't have it anymore. But wait, indeed I will, as I have that second bottle to hold onto for a day in the future when I want to do it all over again. That's the thing about bringing home whisky from a thousand miles away: if it's great, you can't get your hands on it all that easily. And with this being limited edition, well, I guess I need to savor it while I can. If you live in a region where this is available, pick up a bottle. Honestly, if I lived in a place where this was available, I'd pick up as many as I could, but you know I'm a sucker for the peat whether its an Islay scotch or merely the influence of Islay on an American whisky. It's probably not for everyone. And that leaves more for those of us who'll appreciate it.