Chicken Cock Whiskey

It probably comes as no surprise that I’ve gotten to know the liquor store up the road from me, Brentwood Spirits, fairly well. Even though it is a small store, the staff are knowledgable and they have steered me toward some really nice choices in the past. So I was a little taken aback when I went in last week looking for something new to try and they recommended a flavored whiskey with a sophomoric name and a tin can. Flavored whiskeys are not something I typically recommend to whiskey lovers. So were they recommending it to me because they thought it was good, or because they were trying to unload some slow moving product? The price was only $19 a bottle, so I decided to give Chicken Cock flavored whiskey a try.

Chicken Cock is another historic whiskey brand that is being introduced with big money and marketing while attempting to trade on a long dead name’s history. According to my friend at Brentwood, although it had existed as brand since 1856, it was during prohibition that Chicken Cock moved production to Canada and started shipping their product back in tin cans. That was when they started adding flavor to mask the metallic aftertaste. That particular story isn’t on their website but they do claim that Chicken Cock was a favored brand at the Cotton Club during prohibition. It stopped being made shortly thereafter and is being reintroduced by a company out of South Carolina. Flavored vodka has done wonders for spirit sales in the last five years and it is no surprise that whiskey makers are looking to jump on this trend. The brand has been marketed heavily in the south, even benefitting from an almost too good to be believed hijacking earlier this year, and has just been introduced into Ohio. So how does it taste?

Chicken Cock currently comes in Southern Spiced, Cinnamon, and Root Beer flavors. Charlie and I tried the southern spiced on Bottoms Up and I have to admit that despite my prejudice against pseudo-history being used to sell rebottled, flavored whiskey, I actually kind of liked it. Chicken Cock’s motto is “More Heat, Less Sweet” and it lives up to it. At 86 proof it does bring the heat. Rather than tasting like syrup with a hint of alcohol, you can actually taste the whiskey. The southern spiced flavor is strong on the vanilla, with a nice touch of cinnamon and clove. I have heard flavored whiskey apologists making the claim that these spirits can serve as a stepping stone that allows non-whiskey drinkers to be converted to the taste. This is the first flavored whiskey that I can actually imagine being able to do that.

While this hasn’t exactly converted me to being a flavored whiskey drinker, this is one that I will be happy to bring a long to a bourbon tasting so that the non-whiskey drinkers can get a chance to enjoy  something more approachable that does give them a bit of whiskey flavor. I would also recommend Chicken Cock as being a nice thing to sip from a flask while Christmas caroling since the flavoring would once again serve the purpose of masking any metallic weirdness and it has enough heat to warm you up on a cold night. If you have been wanting to experiment with drinking whiskey but just can’t stomach the taste, Chicken Cock might just be the flavor you are looking for.