Around the Barrel Ep049/Re048 - Nelson Eddy

 

Nelson Eddy: The great joy for me is the enthusiasm. You can travel anywhere in this world. And if you tell them you're from Tennessee, they're going to know Jack Daniel's. And they'll probably have a story they can tell you, and then they've got a question or two.

 

Lucas Hendrickson: For everything we know with rock solid certainty about Mr. Jack Daniel and the distillery that bears his name, 1000 more myths have popped up over the years. It's to be expected when the famous square bottle and iconic black and white label, not to mention the whiskey inside, have touched the farthest reaches of the globe.

 

On this episode, we talk with Nelson Eddie, the distillery's longtime writer and historian, about the questions he gets posed as the keeper of the distillery's legend, about the true significance of the old number seven, and about what was true in Mr. Jack's day largely remains true today when it comes to what's made in and around the barrel.

 

Welcome to the season four finale of Around The Barrel, the official podcast from the makers of Jack Daniel's. I'm your host, Lucas Hendrickson. Unless it's your job to comb through a century and a half of stories and sources, it can sometimes be a challenge to figure out what's fact and what's fiction when it comes to the lore of the Jack Daniel distillery and the world famous whiskey that emerges from it. Nelson Eddie has that very job, working with the distillery for the past three plus decades. Including his current role as the company's historian, it's been Nelson's task to wade through all the stories, legends, fables, and facts that have popped up over the years, and bring them into focus for use in the future. It's a task he takes very seriously, yet with a lighthearted touch to it. Because he knows at the end of the day, everyone has their own story when it comes to old number seven.

 

Nelson: Hello. My name is Nelson Eddie, and I'm the Jack Daniel's historian.

 

Lucas: Nelson Eddie, welcome back to Around The Barrel. Always good to have you here and always excited to pick your brain. You've seen so much of the innovation and change and growth and spinning this brand up over the past 30 some odd years, that it's always fun to kind of get your insights on a lot of this stuff. Mainly talking about the questions that you get and certainly the brand gets. It's the world's most visible distilled spirit, in a lot of ways. And so, there seem to be these questions, these myths that people don't believe that are actually true. What do you think is the most common question the brand gets asked over the years?

 

Nelson: Well, the wonderful thing about this brand, it does get a lot of questions. People are heavily invested in it, and so they will reach out to the brand with their questions. The good thing about Jack Daniel's, it's not just a super premium quality whiskey. It's a whiskey with a real story, it's not manufactured. And so people will call. And the number one on a tour on via email, via call or snail mail is, what is the old number seven stand for? Everybody wants to know.

 

Lucas: What can you unpack about the history of designation that's true? And what's your favorite kind of misconception about that, that you've heard over the years?

 

Nelson: Well, I mean, there's a lot of fun stories around it. We could actually take this whole podcast and just talk about that one question. So, I kind of try to limit it. But I mean my favorite misconception and there's been an ad done about this, television ad, Jack was indeed a ladies man. And he courted several young women in his day. And the story goes that the seventh was his favorite. Now, if you name your product after your favorite girlfriend and you call it old, old number seven, this may explain why Jack never married.

 

Lucas: This is true.

 

Nelson: That's probably the leading misconception. Another misconception is I've heard people say, they thought that was the legal drinking age in Lynchburg. And we know that's absolutely... And we are not advocating that at all.

 

Lucas: Not at all.

 

Nelson: But that's a story that gets thrown around.

 

Lucas: But does some of that get kind of looped in, basically part of Jack's lore of when he started to learn, or at least when he left home and went to Dan Call's.

 

Nelson: He starts at a very early age. An age today people wouldn't be allowed to work anywhere at a business. But in his day he started making whiskey at a young, young age. So, yes, in that kind of vernacular, it probably makes sense. But believe me, it's not that we're advocating today.

 

Lucas: Absolutely not.

 

Nelson: Let us be clear on that. Some other stories is, it's seven-year-old whiskey. This one, Lem Wood actually had the position I have as Jack Daniel's historian, he was kind of the original. And he worked at the distillery and he'd seen a lot. And he said, the story was that Lem Motlow tossed around, they had a lot of seven-year-old whiskey. And that they bottled it as old number seven, nothing that's verifiable, nothing written down. It's just the story. And most of them are that way. I've heard the seventh batch was the one he thought was the best. And so he made it old number seven, lucky number seven.

 

It's a lucky number. The legacy book, which if you're a Jack Daniel's fan, that's the place to go. Because when that book was written, there were still some members of the Motlow family that could talk about Jack because they knew him. Well, in that book, it says that Jack had a friend who had seven pharmacies. That was real success. And if you know anything about pharmacies in that day, they carried whiskey.

 

Lucas: For medicinal use only.

 

Nelson: For medicinal use. So they say, that's why it was the old number seven. But some people have tied it to a tax district. Some people have tied it to a barrel on a train. And that wouldn't arrived. It was missing. And later someone wrote old on it, because nobody had picked it up. But when they finally figured out where it was and who it went to, the guy loved the whiskey so much that he ordered some more of that old number seven, number seven being the shipping number. So, all of these stories are really, really fabulous. And it's great bar conversation. But the fact of the matter is nobody knows. And Jack's not telling anyone.

 

Lucas:  Nope. He's keeping that secret to himself. What's your closest guess on this kind of thing?

 

Nelson: I don't venture a guess because I just am entertained by what people come up with next. And every master distiller seems to have had their favorite. Jimmy Bedford loved the one about the train and the shipping label. So, I'm ready for more sure. If people have got them out there and want to send them in, I'm happy to hear what their theory is.

 

Lucas: Yeah. Going to the idea of labels, obviously I mean a world famous black label these days. And we talked a little bit about this when you were with us talking about the legacy edition products that came out a couple years ago. Again, what's the origin of that black label? What are the kind of the real world situations that kind of brought that about? Was did having to do with it being a simple printing job on that, black and white? Pretty easy to replicate or were the origins deeper than that?

 

Nelson: A couple of things on that. First of all, that old number saving trademark finishing up on what we were talking about. There is a note on a trademark application made by Lem Motlow where he notates on this trademark application that the first use by Jack Daniel's of old number seven goes back to July of 1876. Which I think is kind of fun, because that would've been the first Centennial of the country in 1876, and interestingly enough, something that's become kind of a symbol of our country, especially around the world, was kind of given birth on the centennial.

 

Lucas: On the 100th anniversary. Yep.

 

Nelson: But the black label. Before that, there were white labels, there were green labels, there was a kind of a golden color, yellow label. So, there were different colors. Old number seven for years and years and years up into this label, was on a green label. When it won the gold medal in 1904 at the St. Louis exposition, it had a green label on it. It wouldn't have been a black label. So, the black label comes as near as we can figure because we don't really have any record of it, but as near as we can figure around 1910, that label will come into existence. In 1910, Jack is no longer a part of the distillery. He's still alive. But he kicks the safe in 1906, and we'll be talking about that I have a feeling. But he's already deeded the property of the distillery over to his two nephews.

 

And so, some people have felt the story in Lynchburg is, the black label was introduced merely as a way for Lem Motlow to honor his uncle. Because Jack was near death, and so this was a way to honor him. And we're awfully glad he thought of that way to honor. Because I don't think Jack Daniel's, especially in the music set, in the music world, that iconic black label and black being such a powerful color in rock and roll, I mean it's just made the tie. It's a much cleaner label than the green label is. So, I think that Lem Motlow did something, giving it a black label, that we have benefited on sure for more than 100 years.

 

Lucas: Again, talking about packaging and the high visibility of that. The square bottle, where and when did that come into play and being? And how many kind of different iterations on that? You can see, well, we've got in front of us a couple different from the decades, not only the current A product, but from, I'm assuming in the '50s, '60s. Slightly differently shaped edges and stuff like that. But when and where did that square bottle situation come into play?

 

Nelson: Well, the square bottle goes back to Jack himself. And again, we've benefited so much from our forefathers, things that they have done for this brand that we still... It's become an iconic shape. I had a gentleman and a marketing person from Coca-Cola say, "Which do you think is the more iconic bottle? The Coca-Cola shape or the Jack Daniel's?" And I said, "Well, that's that's a hard. It probably depends on your audience, which is more iconic." But I will tell you this. I picked up a postcard in bourbon country where they were advertising all the distilleries. They had a bottle without a label on there. It was a square bottle. It was a Jack Daniel's. So, they're advertising Kentucky bourbon using the iconic square bottle. So, it's come to stand for whiskey. It's almost generic, but it's something that Jack Daniel's introduced himself.

 

And the story goes, he had a salesman. Jack did not really want to bottle his whiskey. It just seemed like another thing. He was selling it to some distributors in Nashville, WT and CD Gunter. They handled his product. And they would put it in bottles or jugs. So, Jack really didn't want, have this bother. He wanted to focus on whiskey making, makes sense. But Lem was kind of a marketing guy. Lem wasn't a whiskey maker. He was a businessman and a marketing guy and a sales guy. So, Lem saw the future. And the reason distilleries wanted to put stuff in a bottle and not allow somebody else to do it, is so that the consumer could be absolutely sure what was in that bottle was the whiskey, nothing watered down, nothing added, which people had been known to do.

 

When Jack Daniel's is hard to find and hard to get, to sell a little more somebody. But so Lem really wanted it bottled. So, we have this salesman coming from Alton glass company. So, they're coming in and they're showing the reluctant Jack Daniel's these bottles. The standard shape of a whiskey bottle is round. So, they're showing different shapes around. Jack's going, "No, no, no, no." Story goes, this guy had to make three trips, bringing different glass. And finally on his third trip, towards the very end of what he has, he doesn't really have anything and Jack has rejected everything, he pulls out something that hadn't been used in the liquor industry. He pulls out a square bottle and sets it down now thinking he's waiting for another no. And to his surprise, Jack says, "Yes, a square bottle for a square shooter." That's what's reported Jack said. And it's just means he was an honest guy. It was going to be the real deal in the bottle. And it made absolute sense. And so, that's how it started.

 

And we've had a square bottle. You're right. There's been small changes. But I would say it's more evolutionary than revolutionary. Been small changes in the bottle. It's remained square except for 1947. If you go to the visitor center in Lynchburg, you'll see with our bottle displays, a 1947 bottle that's round. And I think they were still, they had some glass shortages. And I think they were suffering from some glass shortages, maybe from the war. I don't know. And so, it's in round battle only for that one year, and then it goes back to the square.

 

Lucas: You touched on it being in some postcards in advertising for bourbon country. I know this is a question that certainly the tour guides get down in Lynchburg a lot. And it's the ongoing fight. Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?

 

Nelson: The answer is yes and no. It certainly qualifies as a bourbon, and the United States government wanted to call it a bourbon. And Le Motlow and the Motlow family resisted that, because they thought they had something different. It meets all of the bourbon standards. And bourbon has a very, very high standard. You only use the barrel once. You can't reuse it like you might with scotch. You can you only use it once. It's got to be 51% corn. So, there's all of these standards on the product. Yet Jack Daniel's meets all those high standards. But as I like to say, we do bourbon one better. And we put the whiskey after it comes off the still through 10 feet of charcoal. And that makes it, it changes it from a bourbon to a Tennessee Whiskey. So, we could call it a bourbon, but we chose not to.

 

And in those days, it wasn't like there were any Tennessee Whiskeys really. It was a category that grew. And I should correct myself. Greenbrier Distillery was around. This is all pre-prohibition. So, you would've had other people. But they wouldn't adopt this Tennessee designation. And it's more than a place name. It's a process name. And so, recently the Tennessee state legislature codified Tennessee Whiskey. And it essentially is. It meets all of the standards of a bourbon whiskey, but it goes through charcoal. We didn't describe how deep the charcoal and necessarily what the charcoal is made out of, to allow distilleries to have some creativity. Much as bourbon has its creativity Tennessee Whiskeys do too. And we added one other thing. It had to be made in Tennessee. Bourbon, people are shocked to find out, does not have to be made in Kentucky. Though, 99% of it is.

 

Lucas: And for me, and the handful of tours I've taken down Lynchburg over the years with groups who were both knowledgeable and not so much, it's that moment when you go into the mellow of that room and you see the slow drip of the liquid through that. And that's the aha moment for some of people. The difference kind of gets, as you say, codified, and then made real in their minds when they look at it.

 

Nelson: And it's a real difference. It's not a marketing gimmick. It's not something we just stamp on the bottle. You can taste the difference. And if you go to Lynchburg and take a tour where they do the before and after tasting, you can taste the difference. It takes out some of the oils, and it cleans up that whiskey so that it can draw the flavor from the barrel. So, it really makes it nice and clean for the barrel. And we think that's why it's become a global whiskey and the number one selling whiskey in the world.

 

Lucas: You've traveled the world, representing the brand, and we've talked about this a couple times over the years. There seems to be a resistance or an incredulity from some people that Jack Daniel's is made in a dry county, and also in a single place, those are two things kind of go together in a lot of ways. Talk about dispelling people's ideas that, no, it's made all over the world. And why is it really made in a dry county, that kind of stuff.

 

Nelson: Every drop of Jack Daniel's is made in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The old number seven is bottled and put on... There's not even a rail yard near. It's got to be put on a truck. And we followed the bottle from Lynchburg all the way to Australia. So, it's an incredible journey these bottles make. But it's all made there. We call it the source. It's all made with that cave spring water, so you can only have one source. But yeah, people around the world and Europeans come to Lynchburg and they go, "What? There's not a restaurant where I can drink this stuff?" No, there's not. It's a dry county. Now, I'd amend that and say, it's really a moist county. And it's not just because I know who to go to and sample a drink. It's because you can still, you can go buy beer and you can have beer. We have a pizza place where you can drink a beer if you want. But in terms of liquor by the drink establishments that it's still dry and it's been dry, we went dry early. We went dry in 1909. And it was because of a famous gun battle in the streets of Nashville.

 
Lucas: You have recounted that story to us on a previous episode. But that's another thing in that timeline of the company. Because prohibition came to Tennessee 10 years before everywhere else and left 10 years after everywhere else pretty much, how did the company operate during that timeframe?

 

Nelson: Well, it's really a fascinating story. And again, it's a credit to Lem Motlow, Jack's nephew. So he gets through prohibition. I mean, he's got warehouses in St. Louis that he has to sell. He's got about 800 barrels that he gets rid of in St. Louis. So, he's really liquidating the product. He's still got the property, he's got what's left of manufacturing equipment. The still's gone. Of course, they scrap that and that's all gone. So, he gets through prohibition. He sells and breeds mules, and he has big mules sales at the square. He breeds and sells Tennessee walking horses. He has a hardware store. He sells farming implements. And then he's got these farms that, that will produce and he will sell the product of those farms. So, he is got several interests.

 

The great thing and the genius of Lem Motlow, he does all that under the name of Jack Daniel's Lem Motlow proprietor. He does it under the Jack Daniel's name, which was important because after prohibition in 1933, when everybody else comes roaring back, Tennessee does it. And someone starts using that Jack Daniel's name, so that Lem has to go to court, and he successfully defends his use of the trademark because he never stopped using it. And so, that's why we have the Jack Daniel's name today.

 

Lucas: We've talked a lot. And we hear a lot about that explosive growth of Jack postwar, and that the brand was on allocation. Limited eyes going to a limited number of places for so many years. How much do you think that that kind of scarcity helps drive the overall popularity of the brand?

 

Nelson: We can see it today. There are whiskeys that are known for the scarcity, and that's a manufactured scarcity. They could make more if they wanted to. It's at a very big distillery in Kentucky. But they choose not to. They keep it at a very limited quantity. For Jack Daniel's, there was no option. They had one year in the '60s when sales increased 100%. Now, think about that. This is a product. I don't care how fast you can get it in a barrel. You have to wait. So, the danger was, would we cut corners in order to sell more? And the answer was, no.

 

Back at that time they ran ads. And who advertises when you can sell every drop? They continued to advertise because they wanted people to know. And this was their advertising message. We'd rather ask for your patience than your forgiveness. That's the headline. And what they were telling you is, it's going to be slow going before you can see more. Because we're not going to cut any corners that we'd have to apologize about. We're going to make it the way it's always been made. And so, consequently, I mean, they don't have enough whiskey from the late '50s, early '60s, all the way to around 1979. So, over 20 years, they're trying to catch up. And that's why we don't really go globally until the '80s.

 

Lucas: Setting aside, Mr. Jack, who do you think are the three most important or influential figures across the timeline for this company?

 

Nelson: Well, certainly Lem Motlow and what he did from a marketing standpoint and protecting the product. Coming back after prohibition, still charcoal mellowing, which today adds a... We could put a million dollars to our bottom line by just getting rid of charcoal mellowing. But it wouldn't be Jack Daniel's, and so we don't do that. So, Lem Motlow. His sons protected the brand as well. And then in kind of moving past that Art Hancock, a great Nashville marketing genius that was hired by the Motlows. And if you had to add somebody else, it would have to be Winton Smith who was president who hired Art Hancock. And Winton Smith, really after the Motlows, Winton Smith and Art Hancock protected this brand. And then Frank Sinatra. Sinatra's in the mix because he introduces it to the world.

 

Lucas: Yeah. And kind of kickstart that idea of having it 100% growth, and needing to be on allocation and as much as it was. And we talked about this, when we did the episode around the Sinatra enterprises, thinking about him as such a multi-genre superstar, that we probably can't even get our heads around today, how popular he was not only a music, but also in motion pictures, and then in television and stuff like that. He was a global superstar in an age where that hadn't been a situation. And for him to give that stamp of approval to his favorite spirit, it's incalculable how important that was.

 

Nelson: Well, we think it's a big deal when a Lady Gaga or a Tim McGraw or Chris Kristofferson is both big in recording and also an actor. Well, that goes back to Sinatra, and others and others certainly. But Sinatra was big in Hollywood, he was big on the radio, he was big on stage, he was big in touring, and he was global. So, the reach that that man had. And there were far fewer mediums to carry your message. Reporters followed him. And he had this rolling... The whole idea of a musician's lifestyle being part of news, the rat pack under Sinatra and their just 24-hour a day cocktail party, really sets a tone for that kind of rock and roll lifestyle that we'll see continue after Sinatra.

 

Lucas: Again, you've been the company's historian for 30 plus years now. Give us a little sense of the scope of the materials and the sources and the documents and stuff that exist that you've put your hands on, and you've kind of collected and given context to over the years, that help to continue to shape the story moving forward.

 

Nelson: Well, first of all, I've worked with the brand for 35 years. I haven't been the historian that entire time. Probably the last decade or so that role's been made official. I came to the brand as a writer, and writers loved to research. And in fact, I probably like to research more than I like to write. And that turned out great for this brand. And the very first friend that I made there was Art Hancock. He'd been hired by the Motlows. He was the first marketing director of the brand ever had. So, I really learned under his watch. When he retired, he gave me his files. So, there was a lot there. There was far more to this brand. What people see today is the very tip of the iceberg. There's a richness to this fabric that is just incredible.

 

David Ogilvie sends the brand a letter, and this is the father of American advertising. Sends a letter to the brand. In essence, he says the postcard campaign is the very best campaign in advertising history. So, there's just a lot of remarkable things around this brand that really, how deep do you go with the normal consumer. There's some things you can create your own noise, if you go into all of these nuances. It's much better, man if people know that Jack Daniel's was a real guy, that old number seven is the brand, and that it's in a square bottle, it's charcoal mellowed. If they can all know that and they can know it's a quality product, the stories though, people are fascinated by, they want a story to tell. And Jack Daniel's certainly provides that as well as a good whiskey.

 
Lucas: Well, and you touched on it kind of tangentially a little bit earlier, again, talking about chasing a bottle all the way over to Australia and as it's depicted in the fantastic documentary Chasing Whiskey. Another interesting scene in that was, was it's in national archives in D.C., am I getting that right, or the bank book scene?

 

Nelson: It was in Arlington area near D.C., there was a vault, an archival company that was colding a lot of what Jack Daniel and Brown Foreman. That has since been moved to Louisville. So, it's in our backyard now, a lot easier to access. But yeah, it was Jack Daniel's bank book with his handwriting and listing who is being paid. And we're talking about tens and hundreds of dollars, and it's just amazing to even touch something that Jack would've poured over.

 

Lucas: That was his business. And speaking of the business, again, one of my favorite parts of the tour these days is visiting the office that's on the grounds and hearing the story of the safe. Not that I want to spoil that for anybody, and I've heard it several different ways from several different people. Tell folks about the legend of the eventual demise of Jack Daniel's.

 

Nelson: Hey, you can Google unusual ways celebrities have died. And somewhere in your Google list, you'll find Jack Daniel's. This is a question we get all the time. Did Jack Daniel's really die, kicking his safe? And again, the answer is yes and no. And nothing's really simple in Lynchburg. We have a one-hour tour, so you can't get into the [inaudible 00:29:46]. So, it sounds like he kicks the safe and he dies. It's the cause. It leads up to his death. It is the reason he will eventually die. Although probably medical procedures of the day, we could say the same about James Garfield. He has a shot wound, but it's probably all the doctors who didn't believe in this idea of bacteria, touching the wound that did him in.

 

So Jack, it's kind of the same. So, he kicks the safe. He does. He's impatient little man. He can't get it open. So, he hauls off and kicks it. And he begins limping around. And he's also proud. He's not going to tell people what he did. Well, by not treating that break of his big toe. He will eventually over the process of five years and several surgeries, gangrene will set in. And by the end of the surgeries that he has, he'll be missing his left leg. And that's all for from... But he won't die until October of 1911. So, it's a five-year process. But it's why he deeds the distillery over to his nephew in 1906. And when he dies, if you stop and think about it, the distillery is closed. He's probably thinking, Jack Daniel's is going away. But thanks to Lem, it doesn't.

 

Lucas: What do you think his reaction would be to what it has become over the past 150-some odd years?

 
Nelson: I think he would be pleased because we've kind of... I think the folks in Lynchburg who have protected this brand, and nobody protects it more than the people who work at Jack Daniel's in Lynchburg. It's their brand. And they live true to Jack's statement; every day we make it, we'll make it the best we can. We make it at the same process. But guess what? We can now protect our strain of yeast, and keep it from being contaminated. Jack would put the jug in the river and open to the air. So, we've lived true to his statement. And therefore, we've gotten better and better and better. We make our own barrels. We know more about wood than Jack was. So, we like to say, every day we make the product, we make a product that Jack could have only have made on his very best day. And it's not because Jack didn't know what he was doing. It's just, our understanding has advanced, but the process has remained the same.

 

So, I think he'd be proud. If he walked down the distillery though, I think he'd be a little shocked. The only building he would recognize is his old office. That's the only one. Lem would only know that old office, and he would know that Barrelhouse which today is our tasting room. So yeah, we filled up that hollow. We've used a shoehorn to get as many buildings and mellowing vats. But again, as big as it's grown, we do everything the same way.

 

Lucas: What's your favorite part of Jack Daniel's lore?

 

Nelson: I think people's interest in it. Because history is not a favorite track in high school or college. People try to avoid it if they can. But that's not true with Jack Daniel's. Everybody seems to have a question. They want to know more about this brand. They feel close to it. And like anything or any person you feel close to, you want to know more about it. So that's been the great joy for me, is the enthusiasm. You can travel anywhere in this world. And if you tell them you're from Tennessee, they're going to know Jack Daniel's. And they'll probably have a story they can tell you, and then they've got a question or two. So, that's probably been the greatest thing.

 

Lucas: Yeah. Well, Nelson, again, we could do this for many, many hours, and hopefully we will again soon. But again, thanks for your time with us. Thanks for your service to the brand. And we look forward to talking with you around the barrel again soon.

 

Nelson: Well, thank you, and thanks to all the listeners, and thank you to all the Jack Daniel's drinkers.

 

Lucas: Thanks for checking out this episode of Around The Barrel. If you'd like to hear our previous conversations with Nelson Eddy, check out episode seven of season one, where we talk about the distillery's history with the US military, episode 11 of season two and the ongoing legacy edition bottle project, and finally, episode six of season three, where we unpack the impact of Frank Sinatra's Jack Daniel's fandom.

 

You can find archived episodes of Around The Barrel on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, and more. Plus on the web at Jackdaniels.com/podcast. And if you like what you hear, please follow, rate, and review while you're at it. Cheers you all, and join us next time for more conversations around the barrel.

 

Your friends at Jack Daniel's remind you to drink responsibly. Jack Daniel's and Old Number Seven are registered trademarks, copyright 2021, Jack Daniel's. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Distilled and bottled by Jack Daniel distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around The Barrel is intended for listeners 21 years of age and older.