First of all, let’s just dispense with your concerns about mash bills and grain receipts (they’re right there, man) and talk about the pattern in the glass. You’re gonna knock back a small sliver of this bourbon and swirl it around in your mouth and your eyebrows are gonna shoot over the back of your head because damn, that’s got some honey in it. So you’re gonna grab that bottled and look at it with the intention of reading the label to find out if they aged it in a beehive and notice the honeycomb pattern in the glass and go, oh, ok, right. There IS honey in this, but you’re wrong, Eugene.

The pattern on the glass is chicken wire. You know, like the kind protecting the bands at the fancy bar you go to (or the bars during prohibition). But you are tasting honey, that’s a thing. It’s just it’s not honey its the impression of honey developed naturally in the construction of the bourbon. It’s honey, it’s just not honey honey. It’s more like you’re finding the subtle flavor strata of the wood from the barrel staves.

But it could be because there’s also a strata of bourbons pulled from different barrels on different levels of the rickhouse in Bardstown where Chicken Cock ages their whiskey. Those bottom barrels get fat and sweet. The top barrels get spicy and light. The bottle sitting on my desk was developed from barrels on the 2nd and the 5th floors and I don’t know what joyous angels are dancing on the rickhouse boards on the 2nd and 5th floors, but they’re doing it right.

But what you have to tell your dad is

That this whiskey hearkens back to whiskey made before the prohibition. The original brand was a Canadian Rye sold in a nearly identical bottle housed in a tin can. It’s a serious whiskey, though you may not get that idea from the name. The name offers a lot of opportunity for fucking with your dad. Pour him a couple of fingers, hand it to him in a lovely, heavy bourbon glass, then say here, Dad, wrap your fingers around some Chicken Cock.

He will chuckle dutifully because that’s a nice shot and its good to see his boy reaching like that. Then he’ll take a sip. Now you ask him, Hey Dad, how do you like your Chicken Cock? Which does not make him chuckle, but instead makes him look into his glass with a steady and rueful gaze and consider where he went wrong in your upbringing. Maybe he was gone too much? Maybe he didn’t take you fishing? Maybe you should’ve gone to a military school in French Polynesia? The thing is, you’ve gone too far now. And you both know you can’t stop. You’re committed. So is he.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you about Chicken Cock

You’re juvenile ass is gonna keep hammering away and you’re gonna make that joke maybe one too many times. The basement’s gonna fill up with your brothers and your friend Buster and everyone’s gonna chuckle just like your dad did, ruefully, because, Euge, baby, it’s not that funny. And here’s the thing: your pop’s had chicken cock before. It’s 160 years old, dude. Also, your dad is your dad and this is his day and if you think you’re gonna get away with this shit, you are wrong.

Because your pop’s got game

He knocks back the rest of the bourbon while you and your idiot brothers laugh at yet another ‘chicken cock’ joke, sets his heavy bourbon glass on the bar, looks you dead in the eyes and tells you in that gravelly, raspy voice murdered by cigars and saturated with a grainy wisdom, “Kid, there’s nothing I love better than putting a little Chicken Cock in my mouth. So does your mom,” and walks away, goes upstairs, and turns on the Eagles and falls asleep.