Did you know?
• It takes 300 gallons of fermented product to make a single 53-gallon barrel of whiskey.• Chattanooga Whiskey’s current product on the market, 1816, was actually purchased from a manufacturer out of state, since the business’s owners first had to change Tennessee state law to be able to distill and age their own product within the city. The new product is currently aging in the Market Street facility and will introduce new styles.• The current Chattanooga Whiskey micro-distillery can only output roughly one barrel a week. The new riverfront distillery, set to open by early next year, will be able to produce six barrels per day.
If you go
Where: Chattanooga Whiskey, 1439 Market St.When: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 7 p.m. Tours are offered on the hour, with the last an hour before closing.Cost: $13.11Need-to-know: The kitchen area is hot, and the basement even hotter, so be sure to wear comfortable clothing and hydrate. (Cold water is available in each room on the tour.)
Do you know what the housing market and bourbon have in common?
I didn't, until I found myself looking for something to do one Tuesday evening and decided to take the Chattanooga Whiskey micro-distillery tour. To avoid looking like an alcoholic, I convinced my friends Averee Dilday and Eleanor Thompson to come learn about the world of whiskey with me - not that it was difficult to do so.
Complete with a tour of the fermentation area, the "kitchen" where the liquor is bottled, the basement which contains the many barrels of the aging product and, of course, a whiskey tasting, I decided there seemed to be no better way to imbibe on a Tuesday evening than with a history lesson with someone passionate about their product. And, I was right.
The tour, which takes about 45 minutes, covers everything from Chattanooga's pre-Prohibition whiskey-making days to the process of making each variety of the product. Our tour guide, Toby Darling, talked almost as fast as I do, so there was a lot to be learned in that time.
Like, for example, that the 2007 housing crash had a huge impact on the bourbon market, because the white-oak wood required for the barrels is no longer being produced in large enough quantities since the lumber industry hasn't recovered from the effects of the housing crisis. And, since bourbon regulations require distillers to never reuse barrels, high demand and limited supply mean each is sold at a premium price.
I was fascinated. Of course, every tour has that one guy, either the know-it-all, the loud-mouth or some variation of the two, who threatens to ruin it for the rest, and this tour was no exception. Ours came in the form of the classic high-schooler-who-never-grew-up.
This probably 30-something man was so infatuated with himself, I was almost embarrassed for him (or at least for his awkwardly giggling girlfriend). If the tour hadn't been so interesting, I probably would have spent the entire time trying to figure out if he was drunk or just genuinely had the misfortune of such an obnoxious personality. And I wasn't the only one. Several other members of our almost-full tour confided to me afterward that they'd been playing the same game.
Fortunately, Toby's tour was far more interesting than this guy's loudly vocalized musings on life, whiskey and the pursuit of a strong drink, which I also needed after trying to tune him out. Luckily the tour provided several, and the camaraderie among the rest of my tour-mates was strong after dealing with such a boisterous participant, so we bonded over our whiskey tastings.
The free flight consisted of the unaged (clear) whiskey, samples of the single-barrel and reserved varieties of 1816 Chattanooga Whiskey, and several delicious cocktails.
I'd gladly go back anytime. In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for making my own mint juleps.