There are distilleries that mark anniversaries with a press release and a limited bottle run. Then there's Chattanooga Whiskey, which marks theirs with a living, breathing whiskey system that has been quietly evolving inside three massive oak barrels for years — and the latest chapter from that system is the Founder's 14th Anniversary Blend.
Every year, Chattanooga Whiskey founder Tim Piersant personally formulates the Founder's Anniversary Blend, drawing from three one-of-a-kind charred oak solera barrels that live inside what the distillery calls the Solera Room, located within their Riverfront Distillery. It's an annual tradition, but the whiskey itself is anything but routine.
What Makes a Solera Whiskey Different
The solera process has deep roots in Spanish winemaking and sherry production, where a portion of liquid is drawn from barrels each year and replaced with younger material. What you pull out is never purely one vintage — it's a blend of every year the barrel has been filled. The whiskey you taste carries traces of the past alongside the present.
Chattanooga has taken that concept and built an entire philosophy around it. Their three solera barrels aren't just a production method. According to the distillery, they're symbolic — each one representing a different era of the company's identity.
Three Barrels, Three Chapters
1816: The Past
The first barrel is called 1816, and it holds 625 gallons of straight bourbon whiskey. The name ties back to a historical recipe, one that the distillery previously sourced but has now brought in-house in a significant way. This year's fill in the 1816 solera barrel contains a Chattanooga-distilled version of that recipe — a meaningful shift from sourced to fully produced under their own roof.
The recipe itself swaps out the traditional unmalted rye for slow-toasted malted rye, a small but impactful change that reflects the distillery's commitment to refining even the classics. On the nose and palate, this barrel delivers maple syrup, English toffee, and toasted oak — a profile that leans warm, familiar, and deeply American.
91: The Present
The second barrel is their flagship. Known as 91, it holds 4,000 gallons of straight bourbon whiskey built on Chattanooga's signature Tennessee high malt recipe. This is the core of what they do — the style they've staked their reputation on since the beginning.
From 2019 through 2025, roughly 3,500 barrels of their Signature Barrel 91 recipe have cycled through this solera vessel. That kind of volume passing through a single system over that span of time means the 91 barrel has absorbed enormous depth and complexity. Butterscotch pudding, peaches and cream, and orange blossom define its character — smooth, fruit-forward, and unmistakably Tennessee.
Infinity: The Future
The third barrel is where Chattanooga gets experimental. Called Infinity, it holds 1,645 gallons of an evolving blend of innovative recipes distilled at both their experimental and riverfront production distilleries. This is the creative engine of the operation, where new ideas get tested and eventually folded into the legacy of the solera.
For this year's fill — its fourth fill and third top-up — the Infinity barrel received a Tennessee-grown wheat whiskey made from two varieties of slow-toasted wheat. The result is a barrel that tastes like possibility: blackberry cobbler, molasses, and ginger. It's bold and unconventional in exactly the way a barrel named Infinity should be.
How the Blend Comes Together
Once Tim Piersant completes each year's Founder's Blend, the distilling team refills each tank with newly mature barrels, where the whiskeys will continue to marry quietly until the following year's anniversary blend is due. It's a cycle with no true stopping point — every bottle sold makes way for the next generation of whiskey already resting inside those barrels.
The 14th Anniversary Blend draws from all three of these barrels in a specific ratio: 45% from the 91 barrel, 31% from the 1816, and 24% from Infinity. The result is bottled at an even 100 proof — 50% alcohol by volume — and finished across three separate charred oak solera barrels.
Each batch runs between nine and eleven barrels, and the whiskey is aged greater than two years. The cooperage used throughout the process consists of 53-gallon toasted and charred oak barrels, and the final product is classified as a Blend of Straight Whiskeys.
What It Tastes Like
The tasting notes for the 14th Anniversary Blend read like a dessert menu in the best possible way: maraschino cherry, honey graham cracker, cream cheese frosting, and spiced walnut. It's a rich, layered profile that reflects the complexity of blending three radically different whiskey styles into a single, cohesive expression.
The cherry note likely comes from the fruity depth of the 91 barrel's high malt recipe, while the warm, toasty elements — the graham cracker and walnut — trace back to the 1816. The cream cheese frosting adds a softness that ties the whole thing together, and you can imagine the Infinity barrel's experimental wheat whiskey contributing that unexpected creamy dimension.
The Bigger Picture
What Chattanooga Whiskey has built with the Founder's Anniversary Blend series is rarer than it might initially appear. Most limited anniversary releases are just that — limited, one-time expressions that commemorate a date and then disappear. This one is fundamentally different because it can never be exactly repeated.
The solera system means that this year's blend contains traces of every whiskey that has ever passed through those three barrels. It's a living archive. When someone opens a bottle of the 14th Anniversary Blend, they're not just drinking a 2025 whiskey. They're drinking something that has been building since those barrels were first filled — a continuous, cumulative expression of what Chattanooga Whiskey has been, what it is today, and where it plans to go.
Tim Piersant has been at the center of all of it. Formulating the blend personally each year isn't just a marketing gesture. It reflects the same hands-on, founder-driven approach that has defined the distillery from the beginning — a willingness to be specific, intentional, and deeply involved in every detail.
Availability and Pricing
The Founder's 14th Anniversary Blend will be available starting Friday, April 10th, at the Chattanooga Whiskey Experimental Distillery. The price is $59.99 per bottle.
Given the batch size — nine to eleven barrels — and the distillery-only release format, this is not a whiskey that will be sitting on shelves for long. Anyone who has followed the Founder's Blend series over the years already knows the drill. For those approaching it for the first time, the 14th Anniversary edition is as good an entry point as any into one of American whiskey's more quietly ambitious ongoing projects.
