George Dickel facts for kids
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George Dickel is a well-known brand of Tennessee whisky. It is made in Tullahoma, Tennessee. The company that owns it today is Diageo. The modern brand started in 1964, but the place where it is made has a much older story.
The whisky is made and aged at the Cascade Hollow Distillery. You can even take tours there! This distillery is part of the American Whiskey Trail. George Dickel is the second largest distillery in Tennessee. The largest is Jack Daniel's.
The brand's labels use the Scottish way of spelling whisky, not the common American way whiskey. The company says this is because George Dickel thought his product was as good as the best Scottish whiskies.
Contents
The Story of George Dickel and His Whisky
Early Life and Business Beginnings
George A. Dickel was born in Germany in 1818. He moved to the United States in 1844. In the 1850s, he started a retail business in Nashville, Tennessee. By 1861, he began selling different kinds of drinks.
After the American Civil War, he opened a store in Nashville. In the late 1860s, he started George A. Dickel and Company. This company bought whisky from other makers and sold it in barrels, jugs, and bottles.
Partnerships and Growth
In 1871, Meier Saltzkotter, who worked for Dickel, became a partner. Victor Emmanuel Shwab, George Dickel's brother-in-law, joined as a partner in 1881. He had first worked for the company as a bookkeeper.
Whisky was already being made in Cascade Hollow, near Normandy, Tennessee, in the 1870s. John F. Brown and F.E. Cunningham were the first makers there. Later, Matthew Sims bought Brown's share in 1879. In 1883, McLin Davis joined the group. Davis became the main distiller and is known for creating the whisky's special recipe.
By the early 1890s, Cascade Whisky was very popular. Its label said, "Mellow as Moonlight." This phrase came from Davis's way of cooling the whisky mix at night.
Changes in Leadership
George Dickel's health got worse after an accident in 1886. Victor Shwab slowly took over the daily running of the company. In 1888, Shwab bought Sims's part of the Cascade Distillery. This made Dickel and Company the only seller of Cascade whisky. Shwab also bought a popular saloon in Nashville and called it the "headquarters" for Cascade Whisky.
After McLin Davis passed away in 1898, his son, Norman Davis, briefly managed the distillery. However, Shwab took him to court, and Norman had to sell his share.
When George Dickel passed away in 1894, he left his share of the company to his wife, Augusta. She kept her share but did not take part in running the business. When she passed away in 1916, she left her share to Shwab.
Facing Prohibition
In the early 1900s, Shwab strongly fought against prohibition. This was a time when people wanted to ban alcohol. He spent a lot of money trying to stop laws against selling alcohol.
Despite his efforts, Tennessee made alcohol illegal in 1910. This forced the Cascade operation to move to Louisville, Kentucky. It was made there until Kentucky also banned alcohol in 1917. The whole operation stopped when nationwide prohibition began in 1920.
Rebuilding and New Beginnings
In 1933, the national ban on alcohol ended. Four years later, Shwab's family sold the Cascade brand to the Schenley Distilling Company. The original recipe had never been written down. So, they had to get it from two former distillers. In the 1940s and 1950s, Schenley's product was sold as Geo. A. Dickel's Cascade Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky.
In 1956, Schenley tried to buy the Jack Daniel's brand. When their offer was turned down, Schenley decided to bring one of their own brands back to its roots. In 1958, a law was passed that allowed making alcohol in Coffee County, Tennessee again. Schenley's Ralph Dupps rebuilt the Cascade Hollow distillery.
The new distillery is about a mile from the old one. It still uses water from Cascade Branch and a special filtering process called the Lincoln County Process. The first batch was made on July 4, 1959. George Dickel Tennessee Whisky was first bottled in 1964. Schenley chose to use George Dickel's name because Cascade was known as a good value brand. Over time, through different company changes, Diageo came to own the Dickel brand.
Challenges and New Products
In the 1990s, too much George Dickel was being made. So, the distillery closed for a while. This helped the whisky's value go back up and fixed some water issues. The original site of the distillery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The distillery reopened in 2003. This was just in time to prevent a shortage of their Old No. 8 whisky by 2007. To meet demand, Diageo introduced a younger, three-year-old version. It was called Old-Fashioned Cascade Hollow Batch Recipe. This version was stopped in 2013 when there was enough aged whisky again.
George Dickel Rye, which came out in 2012, is the only Dickel product not made at the Cascade Hollow Distillery. It is made in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Then, it is sent to Illinois for filtering and bottling.
In 2014, Diageo also introduced a Dickel No. 1 Foundation Recipe. This is an unaged version of their standard mix, mostly made from corn. Around the same time, a new bottling line was put in at the distillery.
Master Distillers
From 2005 to 2015, John Lunn was the Master Distiller at Cascade Distillery. In 2015, he left to work for another company. Nicole Austin became the general manager and distiller of Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. in March 2018. Before this, she worked in Ireland and also as a master blender in New York.
How George Dickel Whisky is Made
The main ingredients for George Dickel whisky are 84% corn, 8% rye, and 8% malted barley. The liquid is cooled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, it is filtered through vats with 10-12 feet of charcoal for several days. This is their special filtering process. After that, it is put into barrels.
The distillery's barrel warehouses are only one story high. This helps keep the temperature even for all the barrels. The whisky is aged for at least five years before it is ready to be bottled. All products are also filtered again to remove any natural minerals from the barrel aging.
George Dickel Products
Here are some of the whiskies made under the George Dickel brand:
- Old No. 8 Brand with a black label.
- Superior No. 12 Brand with a beige label.
- Barrel Select Tennessee small batch whisky.
- George Dickel Distillery Reserve Collection 17 Year Tennessee Whisky.
- George Dickel Rye Whisky with a green label (made in Indiana).
- No. 1 Foundation Recipe white corn whisky.
- George Dickel Tabasco Barrel Finish.
- George Dickel bottled-in-bond with a blue label.
- George Dickel Tennessee Whisky Bottled in Bond 13 Years Old.
They also make a very small amount of George Dickel Hand Selected Barrel aged at 9 years. These are only for people who buy a whole barrel.
Awards and Recognition
Food critic Morgan Murphy said that the No. 1 Foundation Recipe is "smooth, sweet (but not overly so), and peppery."
In 2015, several George Dickel brands won awards at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. George Dickel No. 12 was named "Best Tennessee Whiskey" and won a double gold medal. George Dickel Rye Whisky also won double gold. George Dickel Barrel Select Tennessee Whisky earned a gold medal.
