IT’S READY WHEN IT’S READY
We’ve always made Jack Daniel’s the way Jack himself prescribed it back in 1866. And part of that recipe includes a fair amount of patience.
A number of things help decide how long a barrel of whiskey stays in the barrelhouse, including the barrel itself and where it rests in the barrelhouse. Whiskey on the upper floors of the barrelhouse, where the temperature changes are more extreme, tends to be more mature than whiskey of the same age on the cooler, lower floors of the barrelhouse. That’s why we believe age is an unreliable way to determine when a whiskey is ready.
Jack knew that whiskey is like people—age isn’t always the best measure of maturity. To this day, our whiskey is only deemed ready for bottling when it tastes ready. Because a date on a calendar can’t tell you all the things a sip can. We rely on our team of accomplished whiskey tasters to sample each and every barrel, looking for tell-tale subtleties of flavor and character that tell them when a whiskey is ready for bottling.
It takes a lot of practice to become a Master Taster at The Jack Daniel Distillery. But in over 150 years of sipping and sampling whiskey, we haven’t heard any complaints.
