15 Years? I Don't Mind, I Don't Mind.
The Cascade Hollow Distillery A.K.A. George Dickel
Hendrix famously sang "Now if 6 turned out to be 9, I don't mind, I don't mind." For me, when 9 turned out to be 15, I certainly didn't mind either. Regardless of the interpretation of Hendrix's lyrics, in the booze business we have some clear facts to work with - namely distillation and bottling dates. During a visit to Tennessee this past June I ventured into Cascade Hollow and got the inside look at George Dickel's production facility. The stunning revelation for me was not just how small the distillery itself is, but how much quality whisky they are sitting on. Operating just 2x 9,625 gallon mash tuns and doing many things the old fashioned way they quietly, slowly, and steadily, churn out some of Tennessee's best whisky. While Dickel's parent company, Diageo, is building as many new warehouses on the site as possible for continued growth, the relative obscurity of Dickel's brand compared to their Tennessee neighbor Jack Daniel's has allowed them to amass an incredible collection of old stocks. Quite an enviable position in today's American whisky landscape.
New Barrel Houses Under Construction.
While older storage facilities are all rickhouses, the new construction is palletized to save space.
We've begun to see this fact reflected in the market by a plethora of old Tennessee produced bottles of whisky. Producers like Barrell and Smooth Ambler have both had majorly sought after releases of Tennessee distillate this year. While the source of these products isn't disclosed, it's a fair bet that they didn't come from Jack, who despite laying down thousands of barrels of whiskey a day, needs every drop for their famous No. 7. There just simply aren't any other producers in Tennessee who have been making whisky long enough to supply the 13-14 year age statements we've seen on these releases. As they like to say in Cascade Hollow, "If you don't know Dickel, you don't know Jack."
George Dickel 13 Year Bottled In Bond, Just $35
The 6 barrel samples, all labeled as 9 year old.
Independent bottling aside - the real kicker here, is that George Dickel, which has long sold single casks with a 9 year age statement, is putting some of these older stocks into that program. And that brings us to the story of Barrel #04B25-017. Even with a visit to the distillery, the selection of casks still happens from prepulled samples with nothing but "George Dickel 9 yr Proof 103" and a barrel number printed on them. After starting with a quick taste of the incredible 13 year bottled in bond release from the distillery, we settled into 6 casks samples at the visitor center bar. While the casks selected for this program are always good, one cask in particular was a true standout among the lineup. It was an easy choice so we drew up the paperwork and called it a day. I didn't think much about the specifics of the cask to be honest because we've never been privy to them for this program before. My assumption was that this cask would be bottled just like all the others that we've selected in the past. That it would have a similar yield and the same frustrating label that doesn't mention the barrel number on it and can only be distinguished from other barrels by the bottle code etched into the bottom of the glass. And it was. We were relegated writing up the cask the same way we always do - on the quality of the whisky itself and the understanding that it's a 9 year product. Only one strange fact set this cask apart. It only yielded 8 cases, while most 9 Year Dickel casks provide 13-14 cases of whisky. That right there explained the concentration in flavor and enormous intensity of this cask over the others. I figured case closed and moved on.
The obvious standout.
The details.
For the first time ever, after this cask was delivered a package arrived in the mail with my name on it from Dickel. I cut it open to find a box with bottle neck tags. These tags, handsomely printed on wood cards with our logo also sat the barrel number along with distillation and bottling dates. Hard facts about this cask of whisky. Turns out, this ultra concentrated barrel was distilled on February 25th, 2004 and bottled in May of 2019. Firmly 6 years older than the label on the bottle suggests. While we've seen this before with Knob Creek's nominal 9 year old single barrels, often 13-15 years old, this is the first time we've ever had confirmation of production dates from Dickel. Being the first one, I have no idea if this is the new normal or if this is just a fluke barrel that snuck it's way into the program. Either way, yielding just 96 bottles, this 15 year old will be gone quickly to be enjoyed by those in the know.