Every man who enjoys a good pour knows the quiet disappointment of reaching for the bottle during a long evening with friends and realizing it’s already running low. Chattanooga Whiskey just fixed that problem. The Tennessee distillery rolled out its flagship Chattanooga Whiskey 91 in a honest-to-goodness 1.5-liter bottle – double the size of the standard 750ml you’re used to seeing on the shelf.
Founding distiller Grant McCracken didn’t mince words about why they did it. “It lets Chattanooga Whiskey 91 shine in the way people actually drink it: together,” he said. After almost ten years of pouring the same recipe, the team figured it was time to let the whiskey keep up with real life – card games that stretch past midnight, backyard fires that refuse to die out, fishing trips where the cooler has plenty of room for one big bottle instead of two small ones.
The whiskey itself hasn’t changed, and that’s the whole point. Chattanooga Whiskey 91 started life as Barrel 91, the single barrel the entire crew picked from their first hundred experimental barrels back when the Experimental Distillery first opened. They loved it so much they turned it into their everyday signature pour and never looked back.
Walk into any bar that knows its stuff and you’ll still hear bartenders call it a craft staple. It drinks smooth at 91 proof but carries a deeper flavor than a lot of whiskeys twice the price – roasted and toasted caramel malts, honey malts, long slow fermentations, barrels toasted exactly the way the distillery wants them, then finished in a solera system most people only read about in books. All those steps are still printed right on the label, because Chattanooga has never been shy about showing its work.
“We’ve always been proud to show off every detail behind our whiskey,” McCracken said. “Roasted and toasted caramel and honey malts, extended fermentations, custom toasted barrels, solera finishing – we want everyone to see the intention behind every step. You don’t usually see a craft whiskey like this in a 1.5 liter bottle – and this bigger stage lets all those details speak louder.”
That transparency started the day the distillery opened. Back in 2011 a handful of guys in Chattanooga decided the city hadn’t made whiskey in over a century and that was a damn shame. They went straight to the state legislature, fought the old laws, and won. Because of that stubborn streak, Chattanooga became the first place in a hundred years allowed to distill inside city limits again. The Experimental Distillery – still the only standalone experimental joint in the country – throws its doors open to more than 50,000 visitors every year. Guys walk in, taste barrels that will never be repeated, and leave understanding why Tennessee High Malt isn’t just marketing talk.
Now that same 91 recipe sits on shelves in a bottle big enough to pass around the deer camp without worry. At the distillery it rings up for $59.99. You’ll also find it in liquor stores across Tennessee and Georgia if you don’t feel like making the drive.
A lot of distilleries guard their recipes like state secrets. Chattanooga prints the whole playbook on the bottle and then hands you fifty ounces of the result. For the price of a couple decent steaks, you get a Tennessee whiskey that took a decade to perfect, made by men who literally changed the law to bring it back home.
Next time the guys come over, or the lake house is finally quiet after the kids go to bed, or you just want one bottle that’ll last through a college football Saturday, reach for the big one. Chattanooga Whiskey 91 in 1.5 liters isn’t just more whiskey – it’s the same whiskey you already trusted, finally sized for the way we actually live.
