Tiff Christie
Welcome back to Cocktails Distilled. New Orleans has always been a city that knows how to party. And that will definitely be the case when it hosts the New Orleans Bourbon Festival over the next four days.
While attendees will have the chance to sample the best that Bourbon community has to offer, they are also in for a special treat this year as chicken cock whiskey is set to release a special edition liquid made in collaboration with the festival for the festival.
Described as a nine-year-old with the final two years spent in New American White Oak with level four char, the expression is said to embody the culture of this renowned festival.
To find out more, we talked to Master Distiller, Greg Snyder, about what goes into creating a liquid for an event like this.

Thank you for joining us, Greg.

Gregg Snyder
Thank you for having me, Tiff. It's a pleasure.

Tiff Christie (01:39)
Now, how important is an event like the New Orleans Bourbon Festival to the Bourbon community?

Gregg Snyder
I think it showcases so many great high quality whiskeys and the number of attendees that go to these festivals, especially the New Orleans Bourbon Festival, gives us great exposure to our customer base. So it's a wonderful and very important part of what we do.

Tiff Christie (02:04)
And how involved has Chicken Cock been with the show in the past?

Gregg Snyder (01:53.879)
Well, believe it or not, in 2020 when COVID hit, we were scheduled to go down. I had a full week of events at various venues conducting whiskey dinners and do bottle signings at various liquor stores and that. In the morning, I was supposed to fly it to New Orleans. Of course, they canceled the event because of COVID. And so it's taken a couple of years to get back on its feet and so forth. But this year, I kept telling the management, Grain & Barrel spirits who owns Chicken Cock, you know, we need to be there. That's an important event in the U .S. that showcases, like I said, the premium bourbons in our country. And so we definitely need to be a part of that.

Tiff Christie (02:53)
How did the idea for the collaboration come about?

Gregg Snyder
So Tracy Napolitano, who's the director of the festival. I met him a couple of years ago. I was down in New Orleans for an event called Tales of the Cocktail. And I got to meet Tracy and we talked about, being a part of the New Orleans Bourbon Festival. And then last September, Tracy attended the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I got to catch up with him again. And that's when we really started talking about a collaboration and doing something special for the New Orleans Bourbon Festival.

Tiff Christie (03:28))
So this has been planned for … what, about six months or so?

Gregg Snyder
Yeah, as far as the particular product that we're showcasing for the festival itself, the New Orleans Bourbon Festival bottle. I guess, six, seven months, something like that.

Tiff Christie (03:44)
And was the idea of the expression something you were working on anyway, or were you able to divert from other stocks?

Gregg Snyder
Well, basically, I guess it's more of a diversion from other stock. We actually have a product called Chicken Cock 8 -year -old Double Oak that we came out with last year. And a lot of that whiskey is now nine years old, so it kind of lead us down that path. This is really the first, one of the first expressions we've done with 9 -year -old. We've only done one other one of the 9 -year -old Double Oak with the Gardening Gun Magazine, actually.

And so this is especially unique, with its own label and beautiful package with a great whiskey.

Tiff Christie (04:31)
And who was involved in this collaboration? So obviously you guys, but who else?

Gregg Snyder
So what happened was Tracy and his wife and a couple of his cohorts came to Bardstown Bourbon Company, that’s the home of Chicken Cock, where we make and age and bottle our whiskey. And I gave them a VIP tour, kind of a behind the scenes tour, but we did a barrel pick and I pulled samples from several barrels that I thought were really full flavoured and special. And we did a barrel pick.
And so I think there was eight of us total. Our brand ambassador, Will Woodington was there as well, but I think it was total of eight of us at the table and we had three samples in front of us, three different barrel samples. And I've been doing barrel picks and sampling like this for a long, long time. I've been in the business 46 years actually. And amazingly, this was the first time ever I've done a barrel pick that every single person in the group tasting pick the same barrel.

Tiff Christie
Really? Okay. That is extraordinary.

Gregg Snyder
Yes it is.

Tiff Christie (05:35)
I was about to ask, when you have so many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, is it more difficult to try and do a collaboration like this than it would be just to do a special release on your own bat?

Gregg Snyder
Yeah, not difficult, but you know, I do tastings all over the country and I tell people, you know, when you do a tasting, it's not an exam. There is no wrong or right answer. You know, what's your nose smells and what your palate tastes can be totally different from the person next to you. And so typically when you do a barrel pick, you know, everybody's going to have their own opinions on which one is the best for their palate and their nose. And to have all eight people in the same group, pick the same barrel was quite unique.

Tiff Christie (06:21)
What do you think it was about that particular barrel that gave you that unanimous decision?

Gregg Snyder
I think the flavour profile. One was a little bit less flavour and actually another one, the third one was actually bolder in flavour. If you wanted to have a good cigar with after dinner bourbon, whatever, that one probably would have suited it better. But as far as picking one that really I think would satisfy the normal whiskey drinker, I think that everybody was looking at.

Tiff Christie (07:02)
Okay. It must be a little bit difficult to know how to embody the spirit of an event like this in a liquid. How do you go about that?

Gregg Snyder
Well, you know, again, I've been in it doing this a long time and I know what I like in a bourbon. I like a good full flavoured bourbon. And so for the New Orleans bourbon festival, there's such a rich tradition and heritage associated with New Orleans and now that they have the Bourbon Festival. So it's great that we're able to take Chicken Cock and present it in a light that kind of fits that aura and that environment and that history.

Tiff Christie (07:38)
Now, speaking of history, I believe that the Chicken Cock itself has a little bit of history in New Orleans.

Gregg Snyder
It does actually, yeah. You know, Chicken Cock is an old brand. I do again tastings all over the country. First question I get is where'd you come up with that name, you know? And some people find it humorous, some find it offensive, but it's actually an old brand. I didn't make the name up. A gentleman by the name of James A. Miller, he was a farmer and in 1856 in Paris, Kentucky, he built this distillery and was making a win. So proud of he felt it was growing about. And so he called it chicken cock whiskey. Well, again, in 1866, you know, Americans were still using the old English language. And the term for male chicken was a cock. The term rooster didn't come about till the late 1800s, early 1900s. So to take that further, a little history on bourbon whiskey.
The American Revolutionary War ended in 1783. Okay. The Commonwealth of Virginia at that time, if you look at the map back in that time period, 1783, Virginia was its current footprint as we know it today, but it also included West Virginia and a large portion of Kentucky. When 1785, Commonwealth of Virginia wanted to pay tribute, pay homage to the ruling family of France who helped the Americans win the American Revolutionary War. And so the at that time was the Bourbon family. And so they created Bourbon County. Well, seven years later in 1792, Kentucky ratified the constitution and Kentucky became a state. So they redefined the borders and the footprint. And when Kentucky became a state in 1792, there was nine counties in Kentucky. Today there's 120. So there was nine counties and basically the Eastern fifth part of the state. I mean, it was large, it was huge. And all these people, you know, had come over from Europe with the whiskey making knowledge and as they migrated to the West and there were land grant deals and so forth.All these distilleries started popping up in Bourbon County. And all these people were making whiskey, they put it in a barrel, and then you put it on a boat, and it'd make its way from the Ohio River down to the Mississippi River, down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and from New Orleans, it got distributed all over the world. And so people kept, hey, you know, I really like that whiskey, I want some more of that whiskey from Bourbon County. Hey, I want some more of that whiskey from Bourbon County.

Hey, I want some more of that bourbon whiskey. So that's how bourbon whiskey actually got its name. And again, New Orleans was a huge part of that and that distribution of getting it all over the world.

Tiff Christie (10:29)
Can you tell us a little bit about the flavours that you were trying to achieve with this release?

Gregg Snyder
So yeah, give me a little bit of history back story on the whiskey itself. The whiskey itself, to be quite totally transparent, I didn't make this whiskey. It was made in 2014 before I started working with Grain and Barrel Spirits and the Chicken Cock Whiskey. However, I finished this whiskey, okay? Our government in the United States, they define what a bourbon whiskey is.
Number one, at 51 % corn in the mash bill. Number two, can't come off as still higher than 160 proof. Number three, it has to be aged in a new charred oak barrel. And number four, it can't go into that barrel higher than 125 proof. So if it meets those four criteria and it's made in the United States of America, you can call it bourbon whiskey. Well, in 2014, we had a barrel shortage.
What happened was in the fall of 2013, the winter of 2013 and 2014, and the spring of 2014, we had so much rain east of the Mississippi River, where most of the white oak is grown, the ground was saturated. The loggers couldn't get into the woods to harvest enough white oak logs to supply the industry. So, long about September of 2014, the industry ran out of barrels.
We had no more barrels and all these distilleries had made bourbon or what they intended to be bourbon was sitting in tanks. They had grain silos full of grain. They had grain trucks coming and going. They had employees that had to work. So they kept making whiskey intended to be bourbon. But since they didn't have a new barrel to put it in, they had to put it in a used barrel. And now you can't call it bourbon whiskey. So seven years later in 2021, the founder of Grain & Barrel Spirits, Matti Anttila. Matti got a pretty good deal on a couple of tank truckloads of this whiskey and he was going to come out with a new skew On the shelf and call it chicken cock Kentucky straight whiskey and he asked me to taste it So I did and I said, you know Matti, unfortunately, this doesn't meet our criteria for trying to bring the brand back to its high -quality prominence the brand was known for many many years again just back backstory on the history the original distillery burnt down in the 1950s and the company that owned that time decided not to rebuild it. So the brand just sat idle for close to 60 years. And then in 2011, Matti Anttila, the founder of Grain and Barrel was doing some research, ran across the history of it and found it interesting. So he was able to acquire the brand rights in 2011. Well, in 2012, Chicken Cock was back on the shelf, but it wasn't the high quality sipping whiskey the brand was known for for so many years.
And, you know, small company, Grain and Barrel, they needed cash flow. So the easiest way to do it was to source young whiskey, put it in an aluminium bottle, and then they flavoured it. They had several different root beer, cinnamon, spice flavours, and it served its purpose. It created cash flow, but it helped the high quality reputation the brand was known for for many years.
So in 2017, I started a consulting company in Grain and Barrel Spirits. It was one of my first clients. I was helping them do some supply chain issues, some operational stuff. But one day, Mahdi, the founder, came to me and he shared his vision of wanting to resurrect chicken cock back to Kentucky and bring it back to the high quality prominence the brand was known for. So when I purchased this seven year old whiskey and I tasted it, said, you know, unfortunately, this doesn't meet that criteria of bringing the brand back. It's too green. It needs more flavour. So we talked about the options and the one we agreed upon, we bought some new barrels, number four level char, like you mentioned earlier, in 2021 and we took this seven year old whiskey and put it back into a new barrel. Hence the chicken cock double oak. So we put it back in a new barrel. I put those barrels on the top floor of the warehouse, seventh floor. Uh, and it stayed in there at least 18 months. That's when we came out last year with chicken cock, eight year double oak. All right. The full summer, summer of 2022, we had 85 days where the temperatures exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Kentucky, which is extremely hot summer, but it's great for ageing whiskey. It's pushing that whiskey deep in the wood and pulling out and extracting as much flavours again.

Tiff Christie
And having the barrels higher, I assume, meant that the heat rose.

Gregg Snyder
Exactly. In the top. It's so much hotter in the top of those warehouses. It expands the air space in that barrel and pushes that whiskey deep into the wood and extracts as much flavor as that barrel has to offer. But then again, we had some again coming available this year. It was going to be nine years old. And so that's when we started talking to Tracy and the folks from the New Orleans Bourbon Festival about doing a collaboration. It would be something special for the event and a product that consumers won't be able to find just anywhere.

Tiff Christie (15:13)
What is it meant to you to be producing this particular expression for the festival?

Gregg Snyder
You know for me just the fact that I can take my 46 years of Industry knowledge and experience and focus it on this one brand is something special in itself But then to have the opportunity to showcase, you know a particular unique product For an event like this like the New Orleans Bourbon Festival, you know, it's kind of very gratifying for an old guy like me That's been doing it his whole life.

Tiff Christie (15:44)
So when visitors buy a bottle of this, what can they expect from it?

Gregg Snyder
I think they'll be pleasantly surprised by the complexity of flavours in it. You know, you get the traditional caramel and vanilla and oak lactones, but there's a lot of, I call it chocolate, cherry flavours in it. It just got such a great complexity of flavour. It's quite delicious.

Tiff Christie (16:16)
And how would you like to see the liquid used?

Gregg Snyder
You know, I'm pretty open to that. I prefer if I drink whiskey, I like it neat or on the run. But you know, I don't, I'm not a prude in that. I say, you know what? You drink it how you like it. If you want to mix Coca -Cola or something else with it or have it in a cocktail, that's great. Drink it how you like it.

Tiff Christie (16:39)
Is this a cocktail bourbon though? Or a cocktail whiskey?

Gregg Snyder
I think you could use it in a cocktail, but as far as a sipping whiskey, a good whiskey that's neat or on the rocks is the way I like it. It's exquisite. It has such full flavour. It's phenomenal.

Tiff Christie (16:54)
In what way do you think this expression best represents the brand?

Gregg Snyder
Uh, you know, it's hard to say again, our whole objective was number one to resurrect the brand back to Kentucky. But the second piece of that was to bring it back to its high quality prominent. And I think it, that fits that part of the bill perfectly. Uh, this is a high quality whiskey, something that again, I'm going to find just anywhere. And the fact, okay. So to add the new Orleans bourbon festival is going to be wonderful. And folks will have an opportunity to buy a bottle of it. It is limited, but it should be enough to hopefully find and satisfy the need.

Tiff Christie (17:32)
Will consumers who are interested in the chicken cock story start to find the expressions becoming higher and higher quality as time goes on?

Gregg Snyder
I think again, we've accomplished what we set out to number one, resurrect the brand back to Kentucky. And everything we've come out with, with all the different products that we've been able to produce in the last, what, seven years now, have met that objective of high quality reputation.

Tiff Christie (18:03)
Aside from high quality, how would you best describe the brand if someone's unfamiliar with it?

Gregg Snyder
I think it's full flavour. One of the things that I kind of bring to the party in my 46 year career, I've not only made whiskey, aged whiskey, bottled and shipped whiskey. I've also made barrels. 60 to 70 % flavour and high quality bottle of whiskey comes from the white oak barrel. It's such a critical component. Well, 12 of my 46 years, I worked for a company called Brown Forman. You may be familiar with Brown Forman. They own Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, Old Forest, a number of different products. And nine of those 12 years, I managed their cooperage operations. So I learned quite a bit about the barrel and the importance of the barrel.
Well, when I started a consulting company in 2017 and started working with Grain and Barrel Spirits, about that same time I picked up a client out in West Virginia, a group of guys, they're all members of the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs. I don't know if you're familiar with that, it's a very nice exclusive resort. But that's all there is in those Appalachian Mountains. It's very economically depressed. And these guys are very fluent, they're all members of the Greenbrier and they got together one Christmas and he started talking about what kind of business can we create to generate jobs for this economically depressed area? One whiskey business, he said, you know, the last couple of years, I've had a hard time getting, getting barrels. He says, you know, we got all kinds of white oak trees and he's Appalachian Mountains. Instead of seeing those trees cut and shipped overseas, why don't we make barrels out of them? So they picked up the phone, called a consultant and this consultant picked up the phone and called me and said, Hey, Greg, you know, this is right in your wheelhouse. Can you help these guys?
So that's it. Sure. Love to.
So long story short, I helped them design a cooperage. I helped them design a stave mill. When they got the stave bill built, I went out and train their employees how to quarter saw white oak, how to cut staves and heading, how to cut off defects off the staves and heading without wasting the wood, and then how to stack them properly so you get good airflow through the stacks of staves and heading. When they got the cooperage built, I went out and trained employees how to build a good quality barrel. So through that relationship for Chicken Cock, and this is something you need
I don't know of any other whiskey company that takes it to this detail, but I've been going out a year in advance and I go out to the stave mill into their log yard and I personally select the logs that we use, cut in the staves and we cut them, we stack them and we let them sit outside and we're going to let Nat Clare dry them for nine to 12 months. Then about a week and a half before we're scheduled to make our whiskey down in Bardstown, I've been going back out to West Virginia.
Those staves and heading come into the cooperage where they're down to the 9 to 14 percent moisture content where they need to be to machine cleanly. But I'm the barrel's constructed properly. Every barrel is toasted properly to a medium plus toast. And then later in the process, every barrel is charred properly to a number three level char. By doing that, create as much flavor as that barrel has to offer. I don't believe in accelerated maturation, but I do believe the more flavour you create in a barrel, the more flavour you can extract out of the barrel. I taste our 4 year old bourbon is comparable to most 6 year old bourbons just because we've created so much more flavor on that barrel and can extract that flavor in the same comparable time. So something unique.

Tiff Christie (21:32)
I've never heard of a whiskey company that's got somebody on the ground who actually goes and picks the wood that goes into the barrels. That's amazing.

Gregg Snyder
That's one of the things that makes chicken cock unique from any other whiskey in the world. So, pretty proud of that aspect.

Tiff Christie (21:49)
I would be to.
Will this limited edition expression that you're doing for this show be an annual event? Or is it a one -off?

Gregg Snyder
I love the relationship Tracy and his crew are a great group of people to work with and so you know the future will tell but I hope so.

Tiff Christie (22:10)
If people can't attend the show, is there any other way that they can get hold of this expression?

Gregg Snyder (24:56.65)
I think there will be some distributed in the area down there. I know I'm doing a tasting bottle signing event the Thursday of the festival. That's the first day of the festival. From five to seven, it's a liquor store called Dorignacs. It's in Metairie, Louisiana, right in the suburb of New Orleans there. And I know they've got at least 10 cases to sell, so I'll be doing a tasting bottle signing at Dorignacs from five to seven p.m. on that Thursday, March 21st.

Tiff Christie (22:49)
But otherwise the festival is the place to be to get your hands on it.

Gregg Snyder
Saturday, we'll, you know, chicken cock will have our own booth there as many other companies will and I'll be there signing bottles from I think seven to nine on that Friday and that Saturday evening. That's it.

Tiff Christie
Now, if people want more information on the festival, they can of course go to neworleansburbonfestival .com or if people want to find out more about your brand, Chickencock, they can go to chickencockwhiskey .com and to connect with either the festival or you guys, they can do that via your socials.

Gregg Snyder
That's correct. I know we're on just about Instagram, Facebook, you name it. We've got a lot, just about every form of social media I think our marketing group is connected with.

Tiff Christie
All right, Greg, well look, thank you so much for taking the time. I hope that the festival goes incredibly well for you and that we'll be seeing a lot more from Chicken Cock in the future.

Gregg Snyder (26:56.424)
Thank you so much, Tiff, it was such a pleasure.