Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey
Charcoal-mellowed before the barrel, which is what makes it Tennessee whiskey rather than bourbon. The filtering strips some of the sharper grain notes, so it arrives softer and sweeter than a bourbon of comparable age and suits a long drink accordingly.
Quick Facts
About Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Soft and sweet for an American whiskey: banana, vanilla and toasted oak, with the sharper grain edge filtered away before ageing.
The Lincoln County Process
The difference between Tennessee whiskey and bourbon is one step. Before the spirit goes into the barrel it is filtered slowly through several feet of sugar-maple charcoal, a process named for Lincoln County where the distillery originally sat. It removes some of the sharper grain notes, which is why the whiskey arrives softer and sweeter than a bourbon of similar age.
The step happens before ageing rather than after, which is the part most often got wrong. It is not a filtration of the finished whiskey, and it changes what goes into the barrel rather than what comes out of it.
Legally Almost Bourbon
It meets the requirements on paper. The mash bill is published as 80% corn, 12% malted barley and 8% rye, comfortably over the 51% corn that bourbon demands, and the spirit goes into new charred oak at the strengths the rules allow. What keeps it out of the category is the producer’s own labelling rather than any failure to qualify.
Since 2013 a Tennessee statute has required the charcoal step of anything sold as Tennessee whiskey, so the distinction is now a matter of state law as well as of preference. For a drink the consequence is nil: where a recipe asks for bourbon, this pours as a softer one.
Lynchburg, in a Dry County
Jasper Newton Daniel registered the distillery at Lynchburg, and the town has been the address ever since. Moore County has been dry since Prohibition and remains so, which produces the standing oddity of a distillery in a county where no bar may pour a drink.
The position is narrower than the story usually told. Tennessee amended the law in 2011 so that licensed distilleries may sell samples and commemorative bottles on site, and tastings run on the tour. What you still cannot do is walk into a bar in Lynchburg and order one.
Nearest Green
For most of its history the company told the story with one man in it. Recent research, and the company’s own acknowledgement of it, credits Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved man who taught Daniel to distil and who is now recognised as the first known African-American master distiller. The charcoal-filtering method he worked with has West African precedent.
It is a better story than the one it replaced, and a good reminder that the received version of a drink’s history is often the version somebody chose to keep.
Using Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey
Usage
The Lynchburg Lemonade and the distillery's other published serves. More broadly it suits long drinks and anything with citrus or cola, where its softness is an advantage; in a stirred drink it can read a little sweet against a spicier rye.
Top Tips
- It is not bourbon, and the difference is the charcoal filtering before barrelling rather than anything about the mash bill.
- The softness suits long drinks. In an Old Fashioned it can read sweet, and a spicier rye usually serves that frame better.
- Lynchburg sits in a dry county, so there is no bar in town pouring it, though the distillery itself may run tastings.
Possible Substitutions
- Another Tennessee whiskey is the closest match, since the charcoal filtering is the defining step.
- A wheated bourbon is the nearest bourbon in softness, though it will taste sweeter and less of banana.
Storage & Handling
Upright, away from light. Indefinite once opened.
Production Method
A corn-led mash distilled and then filtered slowly through several feet of sugar-maple charcoal before it goes into new charred oak. That filtering step, the Lincoln County Process, is what separates Tennessee whiskey from bourbon, and it strips a measure of the sharper grain character before ageing begins.