Chicken Cock Whiskey and the New Orleans Bourbon Festival have collaborated to create a one-of-a-kind Single Barrel Double Oak Kentucky Whiskey that reflects the spirit and embodies the culture of this renowned festival taking place March 20-24, 2024. This limited edition product will retail for $149.99 and will be exclusively available at the New Orleans Bourbon Festival and select retailers in the area.
“Not only is New Orleans one of the cornerstones for America’s rich cocktail and whiskey history, but we can also trace our brand’s history to New Orleans as far back as the late 1830s, a time when James A. Miller was shipping barrels of his coveted whiskey down to the ‘Big Easy’ long before he opened the Chicken Cock Distillery in 1856,” says Will Woodington, Chicken Cock Whiskey Brand Ambassador.
“To commemorate the relationship between our brand and the city of New Orleans that stems back nearly 200 years, we wanted to not only have a great presence at this fantastic event but also release a rare and unique offering to its attendees. Gregg Snyder, Chicken Cock Whiskey’s Master Distiller, and I, along with the event organizers, hand-picked this barrel of our Double Oak 9-Year Kentucky Whiskey in-person in Bardstown, and it’s one of the finest expressions of Chicken Cock Whiskey that I’ve ever tasted!”
The whiskey is aged nine years, the first seven in used barrels and the final two in new American White Oak with a level four char. The result is a 119.6 proof whiskey that has been bottled in a collaboratively designed, limited edition prohibition-era style bottle.
In 1856 James A. Miller established the Chicken Cock Whiskey brand in Paris, KY after his successful venture producing his celebrated J.A. Miller’s Old Bourbon, which dates back to the late 1830s. In the decades that followed, Chicken Cock Whiskey quickly became a nationally-distributed brand that was synonymous with a high-quality reputation and was the first brand in Bourbon County to ship its whiskey internationally. True to the resilience that the brand’s iconic rooster represents, Chicken Cock Whiskey survived multiple distillery fires and through Prohibition. During the 1920s, Chicken Cock was made as a medicinal whiskey in the United States but became more famous when it was produced in Canada as a rye whiskey and smuggled across the border in a tin can, where it was then served to patrons of the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, NY, including jazz legend Duke Ellington. Post-Prohibition, Chicken Cock was then made as a blended whiskey but was discontinued by National Distillers in 1950 due to a decline in whiskey popularity in the U.S. In 2012, Matti Anttila, Grain & Barrel Spirits CEO, rediscovered the brand and set out to resurrect it to its high-quality reputation and celebrated past. Since then, Chicken Cock Whiskey has become one of the most rapidly-growing whiskey brands with its award-winning Kentucky Straight Bourbon and Kentucky Straight Rye whiskey releases, along with multiple highly sought-after limited releases, which are made in partnership with Bardstown Bourbon Company as part of its collaborative distillation program.