Why is Jack Daniel Woody?

Good point, and I need to try that.

Gary

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gillman

P.S. It has been a while since I've had Green Label Jack but generally it seemed younger than Black Label, or less complex anyway. To my best recollection, the woody note I get in Jack is lesser there: this may point to an effect imparted by the barrel the longer it is stored and/or is "active" through placement high in the ricks.

---

I believe that the Jack Daniels Green Labels is from barrels that don't quite meet the taste profile of the regular Old No. 7. I remember a funny story about the Green Label. Not sure if it's true or not, but I seem to recall this happened in New York. When the Green Label first appeared on shelves there, the rumor was that it was a new "special" bottling. Folks flocked to the liquors stores, and the stuff just flew off the shelves. :lol:

I'll follow Thad's example and go back through my video library looking for clues. I've got several interviews and tasting clips featuring Jeff Arnett, as well as the Nat Geo Megafactories documentary. There might be some info there (that I can't remember) that gives us clues. Even if there's not, it'll be a fun way to spend my lunch hour :D

And as long as we are talking Jack Daniels I though some may be interested reading (or rereading what they posted) this Jack Daniels thread started back in 2000 and bumped then by Gary in 2004. Though the "why" of its woodiness wasn't directly at issue it was lurking in the background. I recall reading other whiskey reviewers refer to the SB being the Islay of American Whiskeys and I'm now thinking they read it here first and were plagiarizing Gary :shocked: :grin:.

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forum...0-Jack-Daniels

I think that the green label is what is stored on the first few floors of the warehouses. I prefer the green label myself.

Thad, thanks for the "look back", I tend to forget myself some of the previous discussions on Jack in which I participated and as you saw, discussions were ongoing before I joined the board.

I feel my comments at the time still largely apply with an important exception: I no longer get a "shellac" taste in some Jack. I've mentioned a number of times recently that I feel Jack has improved in recent years, and the absence of such notes is an example again IMO.

I forgot that maple syrup test with KC, I'll have to try that again, and many here would agree I think on a mapley note in Jack. Probably it comes from part of the charcoal that is uncarbonised as would the wood taste proper unless the latter is from a particular method of seasoning barrels used for Jack. Toasting itself is a kind of (mild) carbonization after all...

As for charring barrels and Islay analogies, I've felt for some time that Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants might have missed the phenolic tang of Scots and Irish whiskeys - at the time Irish whiskey used peated malt. And so charred barrels and/or leaching white whiskey through wood charcoal might have been used in Pennsylvania and the South to impart a similar quality.

In the case of charcoal leaching (and indeed barrel aging), it seems undeniable that this was a rectification technique - a way to take something objectionable out of the whiskey, oils and other congeners. But there could have been multiple reasons for using these techniques, perhaps the smoky taste of Jack and indeed bourbon to a degree reminded people of Scots and Irish whiskey - denoted whiskey to them in a word - but the spirit also tasted better through removal of objectionable congeners, the "hog tracks".

More power to anyone who wants to try to develop that or thought of it on their own, but it's one of those things that really can't be proved or disproved and the history is too far back to find anything new, unfortunately!

Gary

Very interesting thread and my special thanks to T Comp for the informative insight. For my part, I like JD and that's it! With or without Coke depends on my mood :)