When we talk about whiskies, a few brands instantly spring to mind.
Scotch = the iconic torch-bearers of tradition: Glenfiddich, Lagavulin, Laphroaig. For Irish whiskey, Jameson is the gold standard with Teeling nipping its heels. And if you’re talking American? Well, it’s probably Jack Daniel’s.
Who was Jack Daniel?
Jasper “Jack” Daniel was a pioneering distiller in late 19th-century Tennessee, who learnt his craft from his mentor Nearest Green who was an emancipated slave, the nation’s first African-American master distiller and the grandfather of a spectacular whisky-distilling lineage that still works in the industry today. Between Green’s knowledge and Daniel’s nous, a household name was born.
Jack Daniel was the man, and Jack Daniel’s is the brand. It’s a brand that has endured temperance, prohibition and two World Wars to become arguably the single most recognisable whiskey on the planet. Today, the US’ whiskey landscape is a fertile place as a growing crop of talented distillers contribute to a thriving bourbon scene; Jack Daniel’s sits at the centre of this realm as the country’s oldest registered distiller.
Is bourbon different to whisky?
The name ‘bourbon’ is given to whiskies made in America as per some key, legally-enshrined requirements, including bourbon must be made on U.S. soil. The mash bill which produces the initial liquor must include at least 51 per cent corn, and the resulting distillate must be aged in new charred oak barrels; this means that bourbon cannot be aged in a cask which has already been used for maturation purposes. The strength of the spirit entering the barrel must not exceed 62.5 per cent ABV, and the finished bottle should not be less than 40 per cent ABV.
Most Jack Daniel’s whiskies meet the requirements for bourbon, aside from the rye whiskies and liqueurs in the line up. And yet, Jack Daniel’s eschews the bourbon title in favour of ‘Tennessee whiskey’.
The chief distinction is here for Jack Daniel’s (and most other Tennessee distillers’) inclusion of an extra step before barrel ageing: the Lincoln County process, a charcoal filtration process that mellows the flavour. The choice also separates Jack Daniel’s from a nation of distillers, preserving its legacy as a singular and historic producer.
Best Jack Daniel’s whiskies to buy at a glance
- Best overall: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select - £47, Tesco
- Best for shaken cocktails: Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack - £26, Amazon
- Best for Jack and coke: Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 - £35, Amazon
- Best for adding spice to fruity mixes: Jack Daniel’s Bonded Tennessee Whiskey - £41, Tesco
- Best for savouring as a long, slow dram: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Strength - £77.75, The Whisky Exchange
- Best for blended-whiskey balance: Jack Daniel’s Bonded Triple Mash - £34, Waitrose Cellar
- Best for drinking with a nice beer: Jack Daniel’s Bonded Rye - £41.66, Amazon
- Best for Sazeracs: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Rye - £55.95, Master of Malt
- Best for sweet, refreshing long drinks: Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Apple - £26, Tesco
- Best for bougie Old Fashioneds: Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel 100 Proof - £80, Amazon
When someone imagines buying a bottle of Jack, they’re likely thinking of the original Old No. 7.
But Jack Daniel’s whiskey roster is far wider and deeper than its most famous bottle – and amongst this roster, there’s a whiskey for practically every occasion. But which should you buy? We’ve dipped into the world of JD to find out.
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Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select
Best: overall
This premium bottle hails from Jack Daniel’s top-shelf Single Barrel range – and literally is top-shelf, having been bottled from barrels pulled from the upper reaches of the distillery’s storehouses. These barrels experience greater swings in temperature as the seasons pass, allowing them to express more of their character in the spirit.
Further to this, the Single Barrel whiskies are bottled from individual barrels – that is, they are not blended with other barrels or batches, whether to marry flavours or to match the flavour profile of each bottle. Instead, each barrel speaks for itself, with each bottle’s neck proudly bearing its contents’ barrel number and date of bottling. No two bottles of Single Barrel will be quite the same, but all will sit within the same expressive ballpark, featuring bold flavour profiles that are best enjoyed neat.
This bottle is the Single Barrel Select, bottled at 45 per cent abv and with an extremely well-rounded profile. The nose is aromatic, carrying a heady mix of bitter and sour spice on a platter of oaky butter-sweetness. It’s a long and moreish nose, that holds the bold character you’d expect in a decent Old Fashioned even before you consider pouring it over bitters-infused sugar.
The first impressions on the palate are of brightness and fresh fruit, with zingy citrus-apple notes dispersing quickly into rounded autumn spice. The sweetness in the nose shines through after this first taste, and successive drams are distinctly – and rewardingly – woody. The finish is airy and almost tannic, carrying clove and vanilla, and the empty glass afterwards smells almost exactly like vanilla-pod sugar.
The overall oakfulness of the Single Barrel Select suits it remarkably well for Old Fashioneds, but this whiskey easily stands on its own merits. Drink neat, drink slow.
Buy now £47.00, Tesco
Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack
Best for: shaken cocktails
Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack is truly gentle by nature, being an iteration of Old No. 7 that benefits from a touch of special treatment – namely, the two distinct times it is mellowed over charcoal.
Old No. 7 is different because of charcoal mellowing, otherwise known as the Lincoln County Process. The process is essentially a charcoal filtration method, whereby the new spirit is sieved through maple charcoal, removing volatiles and improving the smoothness of the finished, matured whiskey. Gentleman Jack takes this process to its logical conclusion, charcoal-mellowing the new make spirit before it hits the barrels and then charcoal-mellowing the matured whiskey before bottling.
The result is a smoother, slightly more refined version of Old No. 7; Gentleman Jack is otherwise distilled in the same fashion and from the same base spirit.
This is a plussed-up version of the OG, with sanded and smoothed edges against its slightly more volatile predecessor. There’s a tad less tinny brightness to the Gentleman Jack, and a tad more of sweetness that shines through for it.
Use this smoother sibling for shaken whiskey cocktails, or for a softer Jack and Coke.
Buy now £26.00, Amazon
Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7
Best for: Jack and Coke
The original – and some would say, best – bottle from the Jack Daniel’s distillery. Old No. 7, the core bottle, the quintessential bottle, the bottle with its own nickname (and a nickname under which all other American whiskies are inevitably lumped when someone orders at a bar): Jack.
Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is a ubiquitous bottle and has become a benchmark for its peers precisely because of this ubiquity. It is most whiskey drinkers’ first whiskey, and a dependable back-bar staple due to its exemplary flavour profile – namely, caramel, vanilla, oak and a tinge of tight spice on the back of the throat.
Old No. 7 is a favourite for a reason, and an unassailable bread-and-butter whiskey for the backbar. You can do all sorts with it, but it’s an ideal for one partner in particular: Coca Cola.
Buy now £35.00, Amazon
Jack Daniel’s Bonded Tennessee Whiskey
Best for: adding spice to fruity mixes
This bottle hails from Jack Daniel’s Bonded series – a series of whiskies distilled following the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. The Act was initially designed as an authenticity label of sorts, allowing bona fide whiskey distillers to compete in a market once filled with moonshiners and fraudulent spirit-makers.
The BiB Act stipulates that a ‘bonded’ whiskey must: hail from a single distillery; be produced within a single distillation season; age for at least four years in-barrel (at the time of the law’s passage, under government supervision in a bonded warehouse – though this is no longer necessary today); not be altered from its original state besides the addition of water; and finally, end in bottle at 100 proof, or 50 per cent ABV.
These rules guaranteed an authentic product, confirmed with a government seal – but a modern, regulated industry and trade has made them more of a seal of quality in today’s drinking scene. And ‘quality’ is certainly a descriptor for this range, which holds a great deal over similarly-priced core-range bourbons elsewhere.
Where Jack Daniel’s core Old No. 7 is a steady affair from nose to finish, the Bonded whiskey is much more of a journey, expressing flavours with a little more chest hair. This is with partial thanks to its higher proof, but also with thanks to the additional time it has spent in contact with wood. The former gives the Bonded whiskey a lively nose, bright and almost nostril-singingly sharp; the latter provides nutmeg and cinnamon-spiked heartwood notes in spades.
The palate is similarly lively, as rock sugar pebbles dissolve into sharp, hairy spice. There’s a good dose of sweet body here, but the prevailing impression is one of effervescent chilli. The finish doesn’t let up either - dry and sparkly - eventually calming to a hot honey coating of the throat.
This is a bracing whiskey, perhaps too bracing for sipping neat. It is, however, a thrill to mix with, and lends itself well to long and fruity cocktails.
Buy now £41.00, Tesco
Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Strength
Best for: savouring as a long, slow dram
From Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel series, this serve truly makes good on the flavours promised by its top-shelf barrel-bottling methodology. True to the name, the Barrel Strength is bottled at 62.5 per cent abv, which is incidentally the highest legal volume at which a spirit can enter a barrel in order to make bourbon.
The high ABV of the Barrel Strength makes it strong in more than one way; as well as carrying lots of booze, the Barrel Strength carries an abundance of flavour – starting with roasty, toasty licks of oak and spoonfuls of demerara sugar.
To enjoy this properly, you should pour neat and add drops of water as you go; the water reveals more of the flavour over time, giving you a glass that develops in complexity as you drink it. Sit and savour this if you’re looking for a journey in your glass.
Buy now £77.75, The Whisky Exchange
Jack Daniel’s Bonded Triple Mash
Best for: blended-whiskey balance
Jack Daniels’ Bonded Triple Mash is a rare beast in the Jack Daniel’s roster. It is a blended whiskey, which proudly balances three distinct flavour profiles from three different whiskeys – all of which were distilled and aged to Bottled-in-Bond Act stipulations.
The Triple Mash features rye whiskey, Tennessee whiskey and American malt whiskey in varying proportions, with a view to finding harmonious balance between the unique characters of each. The malt provides sweetness, the rye provides bold, structured spice and the Tennessee whisky (as touched on earlier) brings lively, woody spice with a kick.
Altogether in the Triple Mash, the result is a rounded and full-bodied drinking affair. There’s honey on the tongue and cinnamon in the nose, while the finish leans on oak and spice to provide something lingering and memorable. Drink with ginger ale, and enjoy the balance within.
Buy now £34.00, Waitrose Cellar
Jack Daniel’s Bonded Rye
Best for: drinking with a nice beer
The Jack Daniel’s Bonded Rye is the third whiskey in Jack Daniel’s Bonded series, and the most recent to be released – though its presence is already very much felt as one-third of Jack Daniel’s Bonded Triple Mash. The label leaves no chance of confusion - this is a rye-forward affair, with a mash bill of 70 per cent rye, 18 per cent and 12 per cent malted barley.
Rye whiskies are generally described as dry, spicy affairs, on account of the relatively low sugar content left by the rye grain itself; in practice, though, the flavours shake out a little differently. The nose retains sweetness, but the sweetness is more complex and developed courtesy of some sherry-esque notes. The palate has a surprisingly sweet finish, for the strength and complexity of the spice that starts the journey.
The overall impression that the rye ultimately gives is dryness – a rich dryness that lends this dram exceedingly well to enjoying alongside a craft beer. But don’t condemn this drink purely for being boilermaker fare; it is a well-balanced glass, and one that continues to give.
Buy now £41.66, Amazon
Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Rye
Best for: Sazeracs
Jack Daniel’s dealings with rye do not stop with the Bonded series. There is also a Single Barrel entrant that places rye at the forefront, in the Single Barrel Rye. This rye whiskey was first in line, and the first to use the 70 per cent-rye grain bill used in the Bonded Series Rye. Though their origins are identical, this Single Barrel expression is a different thing entirely.
Its time spent luxuriating in bold barrel flavours at the top of the storehouse has imbued this rye with more woody backbone, providing additional context for that wry rye spice and making for a much more rounded finish. At a higher abv of 47 per cent, more flavour carries to the tongue, too – making this a maximalist expression of grain character.
Being an excellent example of a rye whiskey in general, this Single Barrel bottle is an excellent candidate for making the ideal Sazerac – an Old-Fashioned-like sipper that uses absinthe to bolster the spicy flavours of the whiskey base.
Buy now £55.95, Master of Malt
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Apple
Best for: sweet, refreshing long drinks
Full disclosure: this bottle isn’t strictly speaking whiskey. Rather, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Apple is a liqueur, containing a blend of apple liqueur and Jack Daniel’s Old No.7. The result is a sweeter, highly accessible and essentially pre-mixed spirit drink, ‘Apple Jack’.
The Tennessee Apple is purpose-built for mixing, combining sweetness and sharpness with bold oaky character and giving you a refreshingly characterful base for something long and icy.
It’s not unpleasant to drink neat, but that’s not what it’s designed for; instead, mix with lemonade and ginger beer and garnish with cherry. A nice treat on a hot day.
Buy now £26.00, Tesco
Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel 100 Proof
Best for: bougie Old Fashioneds
The Single Barrel 100 Proof is another top-drawer Jack Daniel’s whiskey, and one which bears much in common with the Single Barrel Select. This bottle, though, professes a higher abv of 50 per cent. Alcohol is an ideal carrier for scent and taste, so the higher volume serves to express the lighter notes of the Single Barrel more readily – making for an indulgent base whiskey in your next Old Fashioneds.
Given the strong flavours of the Angostura bitters that define the quintessential Old Fashioned, and the added sweetness from the sugar cube that starts the cocktail off, many bartenders will prefer to use an uncomplicated blank-canvas whiskey. The 100 Proof is not uncomplicated, but is exceedingly well-balanced – making it a great spirit base for one of the great cocktails.
Buy now £80.00, Amazon
VerdictIf you want the best possible experience of Jack Daniel’s whiskey at its classic best, you needn’t look further than Gentleman Jack; it is Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 at is polished and gleaming best, soft and smooth with an easy finish.
However, Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select takes the top spot here. It is a truly surprising sipper, with new flavours round every corner and an absurdly enticing finish. Get it, put it on your whiskey shelf, then immediately take it off again to pour another glass.
