It’s the old manufacturers re-asserting ourselves we are the whiskey makers.”Īnd that’s a designation that Fletcher and his team, which includes Assistant Distiller Lexie Phillips, are trying to revive. Those brands who developed themselves purchasing liquids - and many of them are successful - they can’t do bottled in bond. “Because of the guidelines, a bottled-in-bond product will come from the manufacturers. “Now you have so many non-producing brands entering the whiskey market,” former Jack Daniel’s Master Distiller Jeff Arnett told me a few years back. One thing a bonded whiskey accomplishes, both back in 1897 and today, is that it acts as a marker of quality control. Essentially, a bonded whiskey must be distilled by a single distiller during a single season, matured in a government bonded warehouse for at least four years and bottled at 100 proof. At the time, the Bottled in Bond Act (one of the country’s first consumer protection laws) was a way to combat some bad actors in the whiskey space. Permanent additions to the JD lineup - the company is toutings these bottles as their first “super-premium line extension in 25 years” - both of the new expressions are Bottled-in-Bond releases, a designation that came about all the way back in 1897. Part of that plan arrived this month in the form of two new like-minded releases, Jack Daniel’s Bonded and Jack Daniel’s Triple Mash. While Jack Daniel’s has previously dipped its toes into the craft whiskey scene - single barrel, rye, “Sinatra Select” - the past two years have seen Jack Daniel’s release its first post-Prohibition age statement bottle ( 10-Year) and the unexpected Coy Hill High Proof, an extremely limited release featuring a seemingly ridiculous proof point that stretched up to 148.3. Add in a few percentage points for Honey, the smoother Gentleman Jack and some other flavored products (like Tennessee Fire), and there doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of room for more experimental or artisanal expressions.īut over the past few years, Fletcher - a native of the Tennessee whiskey brand’s home of Lynchburg, TN, and grandson of late Master Distiller Frank “Frog” Bobo - has been quarterbacking a concerted effort to help the distillery branch out. That flagship bottle makes up roughly 95% of what Jack Daniel’s sells every year. That’s a bold statement from Chris Fletcher, the Master Distiller for Jack Daniel’s, the largest whiskey brand in the world and a company that’s pretty much known globally for its iconic square Old No. “Innovation has been a huge priority here in the past few years.”
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