Age: Barreled 12/24/2018, 6+ years old

Proof: 129 proof

Mash bill: 80/12/8 Corn/Malted barley/Rye

Bottle Count: 144 bottles

Tasting Notes: Beautiful scents of maple syrup, banana, and toasted oak rest atop a sugary sweet base that’s accented by a hint of bright fruit. The sip brings plenty of flavor, with sweet maple sugar candy, melted caramel, and toasted oak. Hints of banana and cinnamon spice form on the backend. Black pepper surges at the start of the finish, followed by tobacco, graham cracker, and brown sugar. Hints of aged oak and mixed nuts form on the tail end of the finish, grounding the sweeter flavors. This is a flavorful, highly drinkable quintessential Tennessee whiskey that encapsulates Jack Daniel’s distinctive flavor profile in its most intense form.

Breaking Bourbon Details: We’ve been following the expansion of Jack Daniel’s whiskey portfolio for years, and captured our thoughts about how our feelings for the brand and distillery have evolved over time in this article.

The distillery is rich with history, and feels like a magical place when walking the grounds, exploring rickhouses, thieving barrels, and then stopping for lunch as Miss Mary Bobo’s. The distillery has a lot in store for the upcoming years.

We’ve really grown to love the various iterations of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey (which does qualify as bourbon, by the way), and for this pick, we zeroed in on a barrel that really nailed the quintessential Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey flavor profile. It ended up just shy of 130 proof in the bottle, but it drinks lower than that.

For the barrel proof rye, we found a barrel that went all-on on the rye flavor profile and really contrasted its sweeter Tennessee Whiskey counterpart. Clocking in at over 135 proof, it’s a bold, spicy pour that hits immediately with a “wow, that’s different” kind of effect. As Jack Daniel’s continues to dial in the flavor profile for their rye whiskey, we have been enjoying tasting different iterations of their product.