Whiskey Review: Jack Daniels Bonded Tennessee Whiskey
People might be surprised when I tell them that Jack Daniels is my one of my go-to whiskeys when Im ordering at bars. Sure, I could spend a few minutes pouring over the whiskey selection and weighing the pros and cons of each spirit, but when Im out for a night I know two things about Jack: it will always be there, and it will always be consistent. But I cant say I often stock Jack Daniels at home, nor is it something I reach for when I want a higher caliber whiskey. That may change, though, based on the bottle were looking at today: Jack Daniels Bonded Tennessee Whiskey.
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Jack Daniels Makes Its Own Barrels Which Are Only Used Once
The Jack Daniels Distillery not only makes whiskey, the company also produces its own barrels in which the whiskey is aged. As the distillery pointed out on its website, the whiskey draws its rich amber color and much of its distinctive flavor from the wooden barrels.
Leaving nothing to chance, the custom-made barrels are crafted from American white oak. You wont find any glue or nails instead, the barrels are held together by the pressure created by precisely arranging 33 wood staves, of varying sizes. Because this is such a painstaking and exacting process, each barrel is made by hand, not on an assembly line. The inside of the barrels are then hit with flames until theyre toasted and charred. This is necessary to extract the natural sugar from the wood so it can become caramelized, as that sugar is integral in providing the whiskeys distinctive flavor.
Jack Daniels does not reuse its barrels. After a single use, theyre then sold to hot sauce makers, beer brewers, and Scotch whisky distillers to be used in making their products. As the company website states, we like to think weve done our part to help make these products just a little better.
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Simple Jack Daniels Electric Lemonade Party Drink
Gently stir ¾ oz of both of Jack Daniels Lynchburg Lemonade whiskey* and Berry Punch, with the same amount of blue curacao liqueur, along with 1 oz of sweet and sour mix, in a standard cocktail glass. Fill the rest with lemonade/Sprite, or any energy drink like Monster, and throw in a lemon slice before you serve.
Jack Daniels Electric Lemonade Whiskey Drink
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Why Is Jack Daniels Bad For You
In terms of whiskey, Jack Daniels does not represent craftsmanship over marketing. Theres nothing smooth or smooth-tasting about this whiskey its harsh, raw, underaged, and terrible. If you are just starting out, perhaps Makers Mark or Woodford Reserve would be a good choice. Jim Beam, a perfectly respectable middle shelf bourbon, is the next best thing if you cant afford them.
How To Drink It
The traditional method of drinking Jack Daniels whiskey is by consuming it neat. Drinking it neat will allow you to taste the richness and smoothness of the whiskey.
However, the most famous method to drink Jack Daniels is mixing it with Coca-cola .
You can also try cocktails like mixing the JD with lemon juice, angostura bitters, or other stuff.
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Getting The Ingredients Grain Water & Yeast
There may only be three ingredients in whiskey but theres lots of room for variation which affects the final product.
The Jack Daniels mash bill is: 80% corn, 8% rye and 12% malted barley. The high corn content which is far more than youll find in many other whiskeys, is part of the reason for the whiskeys sweetness, while the rye gives it some pepper and spice flavors.
Only high-quality grains with a high starch content is used. The grains are uncracked, clean and sorted which means no foreign materials can get inside and contaminate them, and negatively affect the taste the whiskey.
In 2017 Jack Daniels started producing a rye whiskey with a mash bill of 70% rye, 18% corn and 12% malted barley.
The natural spring water used to make Jack Daniels whiskeys comes from a two-mile deep limestone cave on the distillerys site. The water is crisp, cool, clean and pure and because it has passed through many layers of limestone has had any iron removed. This is good because iron reacts with alcohol turning it black and bitter the very opposite of the smooth that Jack Daniels whiskeys are known for.
The underground cave water source for all Jack Daniels whiskeys
Its not just a happy coincidence that the distillery has the perfect water source for making whiskey so close to hand. Jack Daniels bought the land containing the cave for a small fortune because he knew what its water would do for his whiskey.
Jack Daniels Flavored Liquor Mixes
Jack Daniels has 3 canned cocktails on the market, a classic Jack and Coke,
Tennessee Honey and Tennessee Fire are the flavored mixes offered for this whiskey. While it is a far cry from the dozens of flavors offered by the vodka companies, this is relatively diverse for a whiskey company. In general, whiskeys only offer variants of their standard product in terms of ageing and combinations from different barrels.
The price for Honey and Fire are not much different from that of the standard Jack Daniels. At a few dollars less, either of them will cost you about $20.00 on average. If you fancy something even sweeter than old No. 7, you will probably enjoy this offering. However, purists will surely prefer the stronger taste of the higher proof vodkas.
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The Origins Of The Famous Old No 7 Are A Mystery
No one actually knows why the No. 7 is on the bottle of Jack Daniels, but three rumors are that Daniel had seven girlfriends, that the number seven train was the one that carried his barrels, and that he lost one of his prized barrels of whiskey for seven years. Unfortunately the only one who knows the truth is Jack himself.
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What You Should Know About Its Distillery
The distillery of Jack Daniels is the worlds oldest registered whiskey distillery located in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The distillery is situated around Jack Daniels Hollow, where a spring flows at the base of the limestone cliff. The limestone from the cave removes the iron from the liquid, which makes it ideal for distilling.
Out of few countries in North America, Lynchburg is one of the towns that endures hangovers, so spirits on sale are prohibited, unlike beer and wines. With the help of Jack Daniels nephew, Lem Motlow, the distillation and manufacturing of liquors will be allowed, but selling is prohibited.
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Sour Mash Legacy Edition Series
There are actually three of these Legacy Edition bottles, and they’re all pretty hard to pin down. So right off the bat, availability is the main factor for this bourbon’s ranking. Good luck finding any information surrounding the second and third bottle editions for Jack Daniel’s Sour Mash Legacy line on the Jack Daniel’s website. They only advertise the first one with the label that looks straight out of, well, the early 1900s.
Each of these bottles was released with limited availability. Jack Daniel’s Bottles cites that the First Edition was globally available in 2018 and came in two sizes . Most locations were only given the smaller option, but duty-free shops were lucky enough to receive both. The Second Edition came out in 2019 and followed the same availability protocol. However, the third edition, which made its presence in 2020, was not sold globally, and according to Transparent Smoke, was never really sold anywhere. As in, if you found it, you were lucky. That being said, these whiskeys all rode in at 86 proof, and contained the same trademarked Jack Daniels banana bread-esque aroma, taste, and finish. What makes these bottles so desirable isn’t necessarily what they contain, but rather the three different labels that hark back to the Jack Daniels before Prohibiton .
What About Its Flavored Liquor Mixes
Aside from different variants of whiskeys, Jack Daniels offers flavored mixes for cocktails to get along with the innovation of the liquors industry.
Some of the flavored mixes offered by Jack Daniels company are the Tennessee Honey and Tennessee Fire.
The price list for each bottle does not differ from the typical Jack Daniels. The flavored liquor mixes are sweeter than the old No.7, so this drink is best for you if you fancy wine and sweet. But what do you mix with Jack Daniels Honey?
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Urban Spelunking: Jack Daniels Lynchburg Tennessee Distillery
Just as Jack Daniels was announcing the release of its first age-stated whiskey since the company founder and namesake walked the earth, I visited the Lynchburg, Tennessee distillery for the first time in more than 20 years.
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The intersection of these things got me wondering about the facility that produces what is surely Americas most popular whiskey and the distillery that is believed to be the first to be licensed in the U.S. .
So, while I know that the Cave Springs Hollow distillery that is home to Jack Daniels and has been since around 1866 is anything but urban , I decided to dig into the history and include it in my ongoing Urban Spelunking series.
Many whiskey producers know the value of marketing a long history, but Jack Daniels is one of the lucky ones that doesnt need to make anything up along the way.
For example, its current Master Distiller, Chris Fletcher, is the grandson of another Jack Daniels master distiller, Frank Bobo. And at least three current employees are descendants of the distiller that taught Daniels himself how to make whiskey in the 1850s when Jack was about 8 years old.
Yes, that means the new Jack Daniels 10-year Tennessee Whiskey is older than its founder was when he began distilling.
What Is The Lincoln County Process
The Lincoln County Process, also known as the charcoal mellowing process, filters the mash bill through sugar maple wood charcoal chips. This extra process adds sweetness before putting the charcoal-filtered mixture into barrels for aging.
Jack Daniels Distillery also uses another process aside from the Lincoln County Process. The distillery claims it to be an old-time process that Jasper Newton Jack Daniel himself insisted on. Since then, this extra process has always been used by the Jack Daniels Distillery.
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Jack Daniels Died Trying To Break Into A Safe It Was His Own Safe
Jack Daniels died in a very unfortunate wayunable to remember the combination to a safe in his office, he kicked it in frustration, breaking his toe and forming an infection that would kill him six years later. Ironically, if he had just doused his toe in his own whiskey shortly after breaking it, the infection never would have occurred.
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The Future Of Jack Daniels
As Aristotle once said, if it aint broke, dont fix it. Or maybe that was Beyoncé. Either way, the future of Jack Daniels whiskey is likely to include the companys long-time best-sellers, especially the legendary No. 7 responsible for bringing them worldwide acclaim.
But in addition to their past success, Jack Daniels remains looking to the future. Recent upgrades to their Tennessee headquarters are the culmination of hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and have greatly expanded their production capacity and modernity in the process.
This investment in the future benefits not just their offerings, but the future of whiskey itself, while helping the master distillers at Jack Daniels remain the preeminent producers of American, and more specifically, Tennessee whiskey.
As a result of the Covid virus ravaging the globe, alcohol consumption has increased in general, and for Jack Daniels in particulartheir future remains bright even in such a time of uncertainty. In a way, its reassuring to know that the long-standing and dependable old Number 7 will likely still be here long after all of us are gone.
Distillation Converting 12% Abv Into 70% Abv
Distillation is the process of separating different parts of a liquid by heating it until it becomes a vapor and condensing it back into liquid, taking advantage of the fact that different substances have different boiling points. In making whiskey, distillation takes advantage of the fact that alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water so it can be separated from the rest of the liquid, concentrated, condensed and collected.
The distillers beer is pumped into column stills . Like many other distilleries, Jack Daniels stills are made from copper which helps strip spirits of certain unwanted flavor and aroma compounds that would make it unpleasant to drink.
The liquid is poured in from the top while hot steam rises from the bottom. The liquid flows downwards through layers of trays and when it meets the steam the alcohol part vaporizes and collects at the stop of the still while the rest of it falls to the bottom.
The alcohol vapor then passes through a series of coils which cools it and condenses it back into liquid. Unlike other whiskeys that are distilled two or even three times, Jack Daniels is distilled just once. Thats because the more you distill the liquid the more the flavors from the grain are removed. And since Jack Daniel selected his mash bill because of its flavors, he wanted to retain as much of them as he could as it went through the distillation process.
Jack Daniels distills their whiskeys to 70%ABV / 140 proof.
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Jack Daniel Wasn’t The Founder’s Real Name
Jack Daniel was a real guy, but that wasnt his real name. Jasper Newton Daniel was named for two Revolutionary War heroes, but friends and family called him Jack. Our advice: dont order a “Jasper Newton Daniel on the rocks” unless you want some serious eye-rolls from your bartender, and probably a lousy pour for it.
Its Illegal To Buy Jack Daniels In The County Where Its Made
One of the enduring results of Prohibition was the establishment of so-called dry counties in some states, in which the purchase of alcohol is illegal. While most of America re-legalized booze after Prohibition was repealed in the 21st Amendment, some areas of the country stayed dry, and remain so today.
Therefore its beyond ironic that Jack Daniels, one of the worlds largest distillers, is located in Lynchburg, Tennessee, situated in a dry county. According to the local Moore County News, in order for a Tennessee county to be allowed to sell intoxicating liquor, a referendum vote must be held. Lynchburg, however, never did put that to a vote, and is still dry.
The only exception to that law is the White Rabbit Bottle Shop located within the Jack Daniels distillerys visitors center, where those touring the facility can purchase a commemorative bottle as a keepsake of their visit. According to the Moore County News, tax collected on the purchase of those bottles of whiskey benefits Metropolitan Moore County, making the situation a win-win for both the county and the distillery.
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Where Is Jack Daniels Whiskey Made
The Jack Daniels Distillery was established in Lynchburg, Tennessee in 1866. Founded by Jasper Jack Newton Daniel, the site takes advantage of the pristine, mineral-rich water of Cave Spring Hollow. The distillery operation has certainly grown, though it still has a classic Southern charm, and its a popular destination for tourists.
How Is Jack Daniels Whiskey Made
Yandex Picture
Jack Daniels whiskey is a grain-based spirit that uses grains such as wheat, barley, or rye to convert the starch in the grains into sugar. After that, yeast is added to the sugary mixture to let fermentation do its work. At this level, the alcohol content is below 10%. Here, the combination goes through a distillation process to increase the concentration of alcohol content.
A pot still, which is where a part of the distillers beer is put in a big copper pot with a long, narrow neck, is the conventional technique. This method is time-consuming and takes many runs through the still to get a high enough alcohol concentration, but it usually results in a more flavored spirit.
The column still, continuous still, and Coffey still are the main processes used for distillation.
At this level, the alcohol is tasteless and is as white as Christmas snow. This type of whiskey is called white dog or white lightning.
At the next level, to give Jack Daniels whiskey its color and taste, it is stored in barrels for an extended period of time. Working under the forces of temperature and humidity, the color and flavor start changing until you get a sour brown whiskey.
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