George Dickel was a Nashville merchant who, at 54, set out to make a whiskey that rivaled the finest Scotch — which is why the label still spells "whisky" without the e. He bought into the Cascade Hollow distillery near Tullahoma when it opened in 1878, drawing on a natural spring on the property, and built a reputation for the smoothest, most mellow spirits in the region with the slogan "Mellow as Moonlight." Dickel believed whisky made in winter tasted smoother than whisky made in summer, and that conviction became the brand's signature technique: before the new-make spirit goes through the Lincoln County Process — the sugar maple charcoal mellowing that defines Tennessee whiskey — Dickel chills it to 40°F, a step it calls chill mellowing and still claims as unique among Tennessee producers. The spirit then filters through 10 to 12 feet of charcoal burned on site before entering new charred oak, aging in single-story warehouses built to minimize temperature variation. Tennessee went dry nine years before national Prohibition, and Cascade whisky survived as a medicinal spirit made at the Stitzel distillery in Kentucky before returning home in 1958. Under distiller Nicole Austin, the brand has had a genuine renaissance: her Bottled in Bond release was named Whisky Advocate's 2019 Whisky of the Year. The range runs No. 8, No. 12, Barrel Select, Bottled in Bond, a 15 Year Single Barrel, an 8 Year Bourbon, and rye.

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