18 hours Ago By Chris Chamberlain
For most of the second half of the 20th century, whiskey lovers knew of only one product from Jack Daniel’s. Old No. 7 is the distillery’s 80-proof Tennessee whiskey, bottled in a unique square container and adorned with the iconic black-and-white script label that has also become the font of choice for tattoo shops frequented by motorcycle enthusiasts.
Thanks to this laser focus on one product and advocacy from noted celebrities like Frank Sinatra, “Black Label” was all Jack Daniel’s needed to rise to spirits supremacy with sales exceeding 6 million cases of Old No. 7 per year by the turn of the 21st century. The brand has diversified a bit since the 1988 introduction of Gentleman Jack, a very similar product to Black Label with an extra pass through the charcoal mellowing process to impart a little extra smoothness.
Later product releases included a rye whiskey, single-barrel offerings and flavored whiskeys including honey, cinnamon and apple varieties. A constant throughout the past hundred years was the lack of an age statement on Jack Daniel’s products, stipulating only that the whiskey spends at least four years in oak to qualify as a straight whiskey under labeling regulations. That changed in 2021 when Jack Daniel’s released 10-year-old and 12-year-old versions of their classic mash bill recipe, the first age-statement products in more than a century.
While Jack Daniel was still alive, he in fact offered many different aged whiskeys, and collectors have discovered bottles labeled with ages ranging from 10 to 21 years. While the distillery hasn’t confirmed how old they think they will go with the aging process in the future, the release of multiple batches of 10- and 12-year-old Tennessee whiskey has led to their latest vintage product, Jack Daniel’s 14-Year-Old Tennessee Whiskey. It would make sense that some of those batches from the first releases should be two years older by now and part of the new 14-year blend, but that’s not necessarily the case.
This is a unique stand-alone product of barrels selected and blended by Jack Daniel’s master distiller Chris Fletcher. In early January, I was invited along with a few other whiskey writers and podcasters to join Fletcher in one of the oldest barrelhouses in Lynchburg to preview the new offering. That made us the first people from outside the distillery to taste Jack Daniel’s whiskey that old since Mr.
Daniel himself still roamed the grounds of the distillery. Fletcher says this project had been in the offing for quite a while. “This is our history,” Fletcher explains.
“We started down this path years ago with these barrels that were on the upper floors of our barrelhouses.” Chris Fletcher Traditionally, the highest and hottest levels of a rickhouse offer an environment for faster aging, extracting more of the color and character of the wood into the whiskey. As part of his regular tasting regimen, when Fletcher and his team track the progress of individual lots, the distiller knew that these were some special barrels — and he believed that with proper treatment, they could mature into something remarkable.
“They were part of our single-barrel program,” says Fletcher. “We started moving them down to lower levels after their 8th birthday.” In the official announcement of the product’s Feb.
24 release to the public, Fletcher says, “These whiskeys really showcase how a little extra time in our barrels is capable of producing something so special.” All versions of Old No. 7 and the older releases and single-barrel products share the same basic grain recipe: 80 percent corn, 12 percent malted barley and 8 percent rye.
It’s astounding how different they can taste from one another — due to how, where and for how long they were aged in oak. While Black Label is blended in huge batches to maintain a consistency so that a bottle on the shelf of a liquor store in Boston is virtually identical to one being served at a bar in Berlin, the older whiskeys offer unique character from batch to batch and even from barrel to barrel. This year’s 10-year-old is a 97-proof marvel.
It’s the color of a copper penny in the glass, and the extra time in oak is clearly apparent in the oaky aroma on first sniff — but after a bit, bitter cocoa notes appear. On the palate, dark fruits are the first surprising flavors to appear, followed by a surprisingly mellow sweet finish reminiscent of the Werther’s Originals your grandma might have kept in her purse. There’s a hint of saddle in there too.
The 12-year-old emphasizes more of the confectionery essences that Jack Daniel’s proprietary yeast strain is known for. The higher proof level of 107 comes in hot before fading to a nice warm hug of dark molasses, toffee and maybe a bit of black licorice. But the star of the show was always going to be the new (old) 14-year-aged edition, which Fletcher thieved directly from the barrel in the dim and dusty rickhouse for us to sample at full proof of 63.
15 percent ABV. I knew this would be a different animal altogether upon the first waft from the tasting glass. It was like walking into an old-timey bakery with the aromas of wooden oak floors and hot pecan pies cooling on a rack by the front counter.
Even at that elevated proof level, the whiskey wasn’t rude to my tongue on the first attack. Although I knew that what I was tasting was made of just a few ingredients — corn, barley, rye, water and yeast — the flavors were a roller-coaster ride on the palate. In succession, the whiskey exhibited cinnamon, molasses and caramel, followed by almost tropical fruity notes before the grains and oak took over, with the usual long wood and leather finish that eventually transformed into something akin to pipe tobacco stored in a cedar box.
Considering my grandfather actually kept his pipe in a chest like that, maybe that’s why it was so evocative. Although the release of the 14-year-old Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey is quite limited, the company definitely shows preference to their home markets through allocation — it will at least be easier to find in Middle Tennessee than, say, Berlin. The opportunity to taste history doesn’t come cheaply, as the suggested retail price for the 14-year-old should be around $149 per bottle.
The 12- and 10-year-old editions should retail at $94.99 and $84.99 respectively, but individual liquor stores frequently ask for a higher markup on these allocated products.
There are plenty of $100-and-up whiskeys in the market right now, but with declining consumption statistics and increased distillery capacities beginning to hit the market, some analysts predict a glut of whiskey will drive down prices in the future. That may well be true, but the facts that so many newcomers to the spirits game have flooded liquor-store shelves with private labels of unknown provenance and that the drinking public may be showing a preference for new and different types of intoxicants cannot undermine the time, effort and forethought put into Jack Daniel’s aged-whiskey program. Will they someday reach the 21-year mark that Jack Daniel, the man, once sold in the years before Prohibition? Perhaps, but it depends on when the spirits in the barrel are ready — and that’s up to Chris Fletcher and his team.
He won’t release a product that he doesn’t think is extraordinary just because it has reached an arbitrary age. But I can attest that teenage Jack Daniel’s is pretty remarkable and ready for the spotlight..
