Stephen Blackmon
Photography: stephenblackmon.com
With roots dating back to 1856 in Paris (Kentucky’s Paris, not the French one), the Chicken Cock Whiskey brand has experienced some wild swings over the years. The bourbon is again in production in its home state and growing in popularity, just as it did the first time around.
James A. Miller built a distillery and bottled his product in Bourbon County just a few years before the Civil War. At that time, a male chicken was referred to as a “chicken cock,” and each bottle label featured a proud, colorful rooster. After Miller passed away, his distillery eventually was purchased by a former employee, George G. White, and renamed the G.G. White Distillery. White made a slight change in the name of the product. With a nod to his old boss, he called it The Old J.A. Miller Chicken Cock Whiskey. Thanks to the convenience of river traffic, the smooth bourbon was distributed all over the United States and beyond. By the 1880s, the Paris distillery produced 9,000 barrels a year.
As with most spirits, Prohibition put the brakes on production in the 1920s, and the company then changed hands several times. Although bourbon was banned in the U.S., stories remain that the spirit was produced for medicinal purposes and often was smuggled into bars and clubs in a tin can. Remember this “tin can” reference because it re-enters the story later.
• • •
In 2011, Matti Anttila, founder and CEO of Grain & Barrel Spirits in Bardstown, researched the early days of distilling in the U.S. “Prior to Prohibition, there were thousands of brands, hundreds of distilleries, most of which don’t exist anymore,” he said. “I sensed that there were brands that had died off that might be interesting to bring back, especially when we saw the resurgence in interest in bourbon.”
During his research, Anttila found old bottles of Chicken Cock Whiskey, a few still with liquid inside. “I came across Chicken Cock, and the first thing that stuck out to me was the name,” he said. “So, I started digging deeper and quickly realized it was a major brand during the 19th century.”
But it wasn’t just the popularity that intrigued him; it was who drank it. “The key piece for me—and what sealed the deal on the commitment to bring this storied brand back to life—was discovering that this brand was being served at The Cotton Club in Harlem during Prohibition,” Anttila said. “I discovered that Duke Ellington wrote about the brand in his memoirs. He mentions Chicken Cock multiple times.”
Along with this delightful history, Anttila had access to bottles the company used 100 years ago and was able to recreate them. The familiar etched glass, apothecary styling and even the tin can in which some bottles were sold are on store shelves today in this new version of an old classic.
Anttila brought in Master Distiller Gregg Snyder, a 46-year veteran of the distilling industry, to formulate today’s version of the whiskey. “I’ve made whiskey, aged whiskey, bottled and shipped whiskey, but I’ve also made barrels,” Snyder said. “A lot of people don’t realize that the barrel is such a critical component to making a high-quality whiskey, with 60 to 70 percent of the flavor coming from that white oak barrel.”
Snyder oversees all the Chicken Cock Whiskey products and has a major role in the barrel production. He travels to West Virginia and selects the logs that will be used for the staves and headings. After they air dry for nine to 12 months, he oversees the barrel construction, along with the toasting and charring of the interior.
Snyder said it is this attention to the barrel that pays off in flavor. “I have oversight from bark to barrel and bourbon to bottle,” Snyder said. “That attention makes Chicken Cock unique.”
• • •
The company began producing Chicken Cock in Bardstown in 2018. In addition to Chicken Cock Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, there is Chicken Cock Kentucky Straight Rye and Double Oak Kentucky Whiskey. The company also offers limited releases such as the Chicken Cock Whiskey Red Stave that is aged in a wine barrel. The limited-release bottles are sold in the iconic cans, but this time around, no smuggling is involved.
Anttila has enjoyed the journey of bringing this once-popular brand of bourbon back to Kentucky and has added a few touches of his own. “It is great to have history and heritage, but you also have to make it relevant to today. So, the fun part of this process is how you tap into this rich archive that we have access to and make it more relevant, like giving the original rooster on the label a little more life,” he said. “We have done a few things to make it a little more modern, but we are still very much in line with the core ethos of the original brand.”