Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Heritage Tennessee Whiskey Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

Arguably the best decision made by the powers that be at Brown-Forman in recent years was to take Jack Daniel’s in new directions, allowing them to introduce twists on their extremely popular foundation whiskey, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 (“Black Label”). One natural course for the Lynchburg distiller to follow was to tinker with their barrels, since Brown-Forman owns its own cooperage and can do pretty much whatever it wants in that department on demand.

Just such a tweak is behind Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Heritage. Master Distiller Jeff Arnett ordered 200 barrels from the company cooperage, these to be given a long, slow toasting prior to charring. A further tweak was using a much lower than usual entry proof (100, lower than even the distilleries that claim low entry proof as a selling point!) and putting those specially made barrels on the top floor of a warehouse.

Slow toasting the barrel releases far more wood sugars than simple charring. Lower entry proof simply means more water in the barrel with the whiskey, so it will absorb more of that wood sugar and break down volatile chemicals in the spirit faster. Finally, the top floor of the warehouse is where the building’s internal climate is hottest, so the contents of the barrel expand more in summer, pushing deeper into said toasted wood. The whiskey was bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV). Taking all that in sum, one should expect Heritage to be a more wood-sweetened, somewhat mellower spin on JD.

The Whiskey
A pour of Heritage has a mid-amber appearance, and in that respect it’s not too remarkable. The coating of the glass, however, looks quite thick while dropping some normal legs.

The scent here is a sweet one, mellow at first and with plenty of vanilla. After taking some air, it also turned a bit nutty and herbal, with mint and dill. The flavor followed very much in that vein: plenty of brown sugar and corn syrup sweetness, heavily accented with vanilla, with lovely notes of mint and dill rounding things out.

The nuttiness retreated very much into the palate’s background, still there, but only faintly. It comes roaring back on the finish, however, but only briefly in what was a very short concluding stanza.

All the tinkering yielded a whiskey that was in some ways very much classic JD, but in some ways very much not. For that alone, it’s worth a try if you get the chance. Beyond that point on character, also consider it’s value in exploring what tinkering will get you, as well as the fact that it’s a pretty fine whiskey regardless.

The Price
Ostensibly, this item is priced at a reasonable $65 a bottle. However, I’ve seen it marked up with some online retailers at $75 a bottle.