George Dickel No.8

About the George Dickel No.8

George Dickel No.8 is a Tennessee whisky from the George Dickel distillery in the United States. It is bottled at 40% ABV with no added colouring. The style sits close to bourbon: a corn-heavy mash aged in oak barrels. What separates Tennessee whisky is the charcoal step. Every drop is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before it goes into a barrel. No.8 is the entry point to the range. The distillery handles that charcoal step in its own way. Dickel chills the whisky to 40F, then lets it seep through vats of sugar maple charcoal. Cold spirit holds fewer of the heavy compounds, so more of them stay trapped in the charcoal. The mash behind it is 84 percent corn, 8 percent rye and 8 percent malted barley. That cold filtering is the reason the house style tastes lighter than its Tennessee neighbours. Pour a glass and the wood shows up first. Dry oak and a whiff of sawdust sit over a honeyed sweetness. The taste turns soft and round: vanilla up front, then plain sweet corn, with a little apple behind it. Warm spice builds as it fades, cinnamon mostly, dusted with a dry woody edge. None of it shouts. The balance is the point, and nothing sticks out of line. George Dickel No.8 sits at the base of the range, below No.12 and Barrel Select. The number is not an age. Most of what goes in the bottle is closer to four to six years old. That youth is the point here, since the corn sweetness stays bright and the oak never takes over. No colouring is added either, so the pale honey colour is the barrel's work alone.