Charcoal Mellowing. The Extra Blessing
Charcoal Mellowing. The Extra Blessing
There are lots of things that make Jack Daniel's different. A black label. A square bottle. You might be surprised to learn the biggest thing that makes our whiskey unlike any other is the fact that every drop passes through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal before it sees the inside of a barrel.
Folks have used all kinds of names for our most important step. The state of Tennessee recognizes it as the "Lincoln County Process.” Most tend to call it “charcoal mellowing.” But down in Lynchburg, it's simply known as the "extra blessing."
Back in Jack's day, most distillers in and around Lynchburg charcoal mellowed their whiskey. But after the Civil War, wood (like everything else) was hard to come by, and nearly all of them decided they could do without this costly and time-consuming extra step. To Jack, though, this was a simple matter of black and white: if something made for a better whiskey that was all he needed to know. He insisted on keeping this old-time process and it has been in continuous use by the Jack Daniel's Distillery every since.
So, once distilled to 140-proof, we send our clear, un-aged whiskey on a painstaking journey. Drop by drop, it crawls through our handcrafted charcoal at a pace dictated by gravity and nothing else. The trip takes 3-5 days to complete and once it’s done, the whiskey is transformed. Might even say blessed.
It’s this extra step that imparts the distinctive smoothness folks expect from Jack Daniel’s. And part of what makes our whiskey what it is—a Tennessee Whiskey and not a bourbon.
“Charcoal can accomplish in days what the barrel takes a couple of years to accomplish", says Master Distiller Jeff Arnett. And the added time and cost it takes to give our whiskey that head start before it goes into the barrels is well worth it. Pour yourself a glass of Jack Daniel’s and judge for yourself.
Become A Friend Of Jack
Since 1866 Jack Daniel’s has been making friends all over the world. We'd like to invite you to become a friend of Jack too.
