After enjoying Jack Daniel’s for most of my adult life, I finally made it to the home of the brand, Lynchburg, Tennessee, a few years ago.
After interviewing then-master distiller Jeff Arnett, we drove over to one of his favorite warehouses. Up several flights of rickety wooden stairs was the prize that lured me all the way from New York: rows and rows of Jack Daniel’s barrels quietly aging.
I previously tasted a vintage bottle—miraculously preserved for decades—and knew from the experience that Jack over 100 proof isn't just good. It's extraordinary.
Arnett came prepared with an old-school hand drill, which he used to make a small hole in a prized barrel. He filled up a sample bottle with the thin amber stream that poured out of the cask, then quickly plugged the hole. Without further ado, we sipped samples of the whiskey from dusty plastic cups. Neither of us said anything for a minute. It was one of the best whiskeys I’ve ever tried. It didn’t taste anything like the standard Jack Daniel’s or really any American whiskey I’d tasted before. It was incredibly rich with unmistakable black cherry notes. Needless to say, I carefully carried the rest of that sample back home with me.
So, I was delighted to hear that Jack Daniel’s is releasing additional bottles from its acclaimed high-proof Aged Series, which includes a 10-, 12-, and 14-year-old. (Read more about this series on Men’s Journal.) These whiskeys give you a taste of the magic that can be found in a brand’s warehouses—no drill required.
