Chip Tate Whiskey Genius Emeritus
(Photo credit Waco Tribune) Back in 2011, I discovered Balcones whiskey (or whisky as Balcones called it). I was in Texas, Balcones was a Texas distillery. The whole concept of a distillery making whiskey in Texas was new to me; it was an exciting enterprise, and an exciting time. The frontman for Balcones was its colorful founder, Chip Tate. Tate was a transplanted Texan, as were so many, but he had embraced the maverick culture, of which, Texans are so proud. Tate was from Virginia, with detours to Germany, and Indiana. Tate’s father was a nuclear engineer and his mother a nurse. Tate went to college at William and Mary. At William and Mary, Tate studied physics and philosophy. While in Richmond, VA, Tate turned his homebrewing hobby into a passion. But after graduation, Tate went to the cubicle and worked several white collar jobs, often following his wife, a professor, to her different assignments. That’s how Tate found himself in Waco, TX. In 2007, his wife left, and