Yes, the infinitely talented and likable Drew Holcomb has waded into the very premium whiskey game as part of the ownership group bringing you Sweetens Cove. And yes, there is a long, sweaty history between country and folk music and corn likker, but this stuff isn’t exactly moonshine. Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors aren’t exactly a country act, but a refined blend of folk and rock. Sweetens Cove is a refined blend of whiskey.
While we’re wrecking clichés, Sweetens Cove isn’t named after some outlaw hideout down in the holler either, but a pilgrimage golf course outside Chattanooga that, without a clubhouse, still manages to attract golfers from around the country. A fact that would have made more of an impression were I not too much of a spaz to appreciate the sport. Holcomb told me that he was introduced to both whiskey (or at least the good stuff) and golf during the same semester abroad in Scotland. He was a student at the University of Tennessee, on a scholarship endowed by Peyton Manning — another owner of the new whiskey producer.
Another cliché that’s getting busted with each bottle is that the distiller is the only one who can produce a fine whiskey. Sweetens Cove takes five select whiskeys from Tennessee and Kentucky distilleries and marries them under the expert eye of their master blender, Marianne Eaves. If you’d like to meet the lady, well, I haven’t got her home number, but she’s featured in Neat: The Story of Bourbon on Hulu. Despite the star-studded ownership group, to hear Holcomb tell it, she’s the real star of the show.
The price tag for this stuff is around $230. I’m a notorious skinflint, so my shock is less strictly financial and more about the principle of the thing. Your reflexes may vary. At any rate, that price tag was more than my handlers at the Flyer were willing to spot, so I had to track down a friend, one Jimbo Lattimore, who was willing to share a snort of the stuff.
The color is a medium amber, the nose rich caramel and butterscotch. Jimbo — something of a foodie — found some bananas Foster. After he mentioned it, I caught it as well. This business of picking up aspects of a whiskey only after the first one to speak up mentions it is just one of those things. You could hold tastings in strict silence to get a wider array of impressions, but what’s the fun in that? That’s just a hair too close to drinking alone. Don’t drink alone.
The taste, while excellent, was not as hot as you’d expect for the 102 proof we were drinking. A couple of drops of water opened it up to something that was strangely light without turning loose of its richness. There was something of old wood to it — not anything like the smoke of Islay scotches — but almost the way that the library stacks smell. And yet the deep caramel and butterscotch lingered on. At the risk of sounding like I’m moonlighting for a greeting card outfit, this stuff just dances across the tongue. In my notes, that phrase is in quotes, although I can’t remember which one of us said it. I’ll take the blame. The finish is long and balanced: warm, not harsh.
Sweetens Cove is a great whiskey. More than that, it’s part of a larger trend of which I’m a big fan: the blended whiskeys. Don’t misunderstand me, a single barrel, provided that it’s the right one, is a thing of beauty. These producers focused on blending different whiskeys, again, providing that they are the right ones, open up a new brief for a master blender to experiment. And that opens up a whole new world of profiles for the brown water fan to play with.
Now, go out and play.
