Jack of All Nations

[kitzg]

Tim, you might e-mail the NYT imes reporter. I've corresponded with newspaper writers frequently about such things and find they truly appreciate it. They take a puff piece from a firm, make a few calls, and then assume it is true. The NYT is usually very good about fact checking but unless they know Mike Veach or Chuck Cowdery they don't know who to call. Of course I am assuming YOUR facts are correct. I've not followed the JD history. -- Greg

[cowdery]

Tim's right, and when the St. Louis distillery burned down, they moved to Alabama, which is where they were when National Prohibition shut everyone down (except the people who went to Mexico or Canada).

[angelshare]

Jack Daniels success in MOHO is clearly attributed to customer interaction. No other brand has as much fun with their customers. The Tennessee Squires Club (of which I am a new member) is one example of this connection between the company and the consumer.

The thoughts expressed on this thread, in my opinion, tie loosely into both the recent distillery tour discussion as well as the discussion of the "psychology" of taste.

Before I liked bourbon, I liked Jack. I genuinely liked the taste, but I will freely admit that I responded to the marketing/image. Hey, if Keith Richards liked it, it had to be cool!

As time went on, I grew a little more objective regarding the taste. Jack was still #1, but I tried other things. The first year we were married (1993), Tina and I went through a very short-lived scotch phase before deciding that American whiskey was better and cheaper. Eventually, we got interested in touring the JD distillery because we heard so much about it. We went in the fall of 1994 and had a GREAT time.

That's when the second phase of JD marketing started working on us. Whipped into a JD frenzy by the tour, we bought our first special bottling (Jack in the Box). Subsequently, I joined the Tennessee Squire Association and have been enjoying the mailings for the last 9 years. The deed to my "plot of land" and the accompanying photo hang in our whiskey room. We have amassed various trinkets, promos and souvenirs. We have a JD bar stool, JD rail mat, and even a used JD barrel. We have the recent series of gold medal bottles, all registered with certificates on display. You hit the nail on the head - JD makes drinking and collecting JD products fun.

Recently, I named Gentleman Jack as probably being one of my top three favorite whiskeys. Do I like the taste that much? Yes. How much has my buy-in to the JD mystique and marketing influenced that perception? Hard to know, but I bet a lot.

With bourbon, I feel less influenced with the possible exception of Wild Turkey. I'll never forget that WT was introduced to me by a friend as "Hunter S. Thompson's favorite whiskey." WT has the Rare Breed Society, the opportunity to get personalized labels, intermittent correspondence, etc. Not as well done (marketed) as JD, but well done. Though not consistent with everyone's experience here, we also had a GREAT tour of WT in 1997. And guess what? Kentucky Spirit is in my top three whiskies, too. Just a coincidence? I wonder.

Obviously, JB markets well, too, and I am a big fan of Booker's and Baker's. I just think that, for whatever reason, the JB style of marketing doesn't work quite as well on me. Or maybe it's that I tried for about a year to join the KY Bourbon Circle by calling a phone number or mailing something in and didn't receive anything while JD and WT kept sending me stuff!

Hmmm. That reads like a confession of sorts. Maybe I'm asking for forgiveness from Bourbonia for being such a marketing-susceptible whiskey drinking sheep.

[Casino]

IMHO, the reason is Jack Daniels (Brown Forman) marketing. The ads are subtle and laid back, but ubiquitous. They have created an image that customers want to buy in to.

Tim

This is true, and they are using their popularity as a mask, to dropping the proofage and raising the price at the same time. JD is arguably, if not, the most popular whiskey on Earth - to drop the proofage and raise the price... They are trying to rip us off, plain and simple.

[tlsmothers]

I totally agree with that and I try to point out the lower proof and higher price to every customer that comes in asking for JD.

[TNbourbon]

I try to point out the lower proof and higher price to every customer that comes in asking for JD.

Ditto here -- for that reason and the fact that I simply like the much-cheaper Dickel (especially the No. 12) better. But, I'm fighting a losing battle with home-state parochialism. Tennesseans like being 'first' at anything and everything, and they'll stick with JD just because it is best-known around the world.

[Casino]

I wish they had the guts to keep it up at 90 proof, or even 86. I wrote to them a while back, and they wrote back claiming that the majority of their customers enjoyed the watered down taste of an 80 proof Jack to the 86. Then on top of that, they bump the price... An icon like JD can afford to keep the whiskey at 86 proof, if people prefer a watered down taste, let 'em buy the Green label.

[lakegz]

speaking from the college crowd (i just graduated but i can still claim that dammit!), so many people think of Jack Daniel's as being an ultra- hardcore drink that will mess you up big time. There is so much myth and hype revolving around that brand yet people are so ignorant to the much higher proof and higher quality bourbons out there. People see the black rustic looking label, the all american name, the brown color, and think that that 80 proof liquid is the most lethal and rugged in the US market. kinda silly

[gr8erdane]

I don't know about the college you went to, but years ago when I attended the University of Missouri (where Rolling Stone magazine considered drinking to be a pasttime and therefore ineligible for their top party schools list), JD was higher proof than it is now but the bad boy was Wild Turkey 101. Everyone drank JD because it was always on sale. All you had to do to show that you were a true wildman was to pop open the WT 101 and everyone would take notice. Funny, back then I didn't have any idea that WT 101 actually tasted so good as it usually was slugged down in shots without even taking the time to taste it.

[clayton]

At my college, nobody drank anything but vodka. Vodka martinis, vodka-and-tonic, black Russians. The better the vodka on the mixing table (Grey Goose, Belvedere, Chopin, etc), the higher class the party was.

Whiskey was apparently completely out of style.