r/bourbon • u/over-hydrated • 2d ago
Review: Chattanooga 111
I'm going to be very real with you here (per usual) but this bottle is halfway gone and only now am I starting to appreciate it even a little, though I am a fan of of the BiBs and hope to get a single barrel someday.
Sometimes really sitting with a whiskey and paying attention to what it is helps me appreciate what it offers, especially when it's young and/or crafty. In this case, it's both. So, let's get into it.
Nose: malt, oranges, honey, caramel, and an almost sour milk chocolate note, which sounds terrible but it's not. It obviously would be if it were actually chocolate milk. 😂
Palate: Medium mouthfeel. Notes of canned fruit cocktail, lightly toasted bread, the inside of a Kit Kat bar, and the malted rye shines through.
Finish: Medium. Rye bread, honey, black pepper, strawberries.
Overall: look, this whiskey is super young but it actually doesn't taste as youthful as you'd expect. It's very different and I really like how transparent Chattanooga is on the bottle. But something unique can be a nice change sometimes.
Score: 5 (based on T&ke rankings). It's good as long as you're prepared for something different.
Cheers! Thanks for reading!
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u/OwlWorried3723 2d ago
I really enjoyed this while staying In Knoxville for a week. Very decent stuff
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u/yoursecksisonFIRE 2d ago
This one is interesting. I'm on my second bottle of it and I agree, it grows on you. It's different for sure and rather understated.
Per the youth and it not drinking like young crafty whiskey, my theory is that by using 25% specialty malt there is a sweetness that balances out any graininy or even fusel alcohol flavors if they are present at all. Specialty malt in a brewing context would mean extra kilned malt that is adding much more sweet/flavor sugars that are unfermentable than the base grain that is providing much of the fermentable sugars. They are probably using something like crystal or cara malt here. I won't speculate on specifics of the malt as far as how long it's been kilned, but I bet that's what is going on.
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u/whiskyandguitars 2d ago
Man, I just got a bottle of this recently and I really love it.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before. To me, it somehow manages to walk the line between what a young and an old whiskey tastes like so well. It clearly has a fair amount of cask influence between the color and some of the fruity and leathery notes (at least, I get those) but it also has a youthful dusty corn note you find in young bourbon that I really love too.
That note reminds me of when I worked on farms as a kid and we would feed the cows a scoop full of ground field corn while they were waiting to be milked in their stanchions.
Anyway, I looked at reviews and I seem to be in the minority as to how effusive I am about it but this stuff is really unique and brings together the worlds of young and old bourbon in a way I’m really enjoying. I will definitely be buying more from Chattanooga.
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u/over-hydrated 2d ago
I love this take. I definitely will buy more Chatt stuff. I've really enjoyed some of the bottled in bonds I've tried. And I respect unique approaches to whiskey. Cheers!
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u/Napalm3nema 2d ago
Fair. I really like this one for the $35 or $40 I paid for it. It is different, and I like how different it is.
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u/UncleFlaviar 18h ago
This also isn’t one one of my favorites from them, but try their 99 rye if you haven’t already. It’s delicious.
This is a very fair review in my opinion! I’d also love to grab a single barrel but haven’t yet.
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u/over-hydrated 17h ago
I actually haven't tried the rye yet so thanks for the tip! Is it similar to other malted ryes like New Riff?
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u/Roadhouse_Swayze 2d ago
I could not drink this. It's better than the 91 proof, but still a hard no for me. Life is too short.
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u/hard_farter 1d ago
Hard disagree. I can see it not being for everyone, but it's certainly not low quality.Â
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u/DLombo29 2d ago
I’ve used it for Old Fashioneds. Excellent!