Then the question becomes whether the filtering, the mellowing, takes some essential “bourbonness” out of the whiskey if it somehow “unbourbons” it. The final stage was clean, focused and singing a pure note compared to the muddled first stage and still rough second. About 20 years ago, former Dickel distiller John Lunn sampled me on three stages of new make: right off the beer still, after the doubler and after the charcoal leaching. By absorbing that corn aroma and mouthfeel, it allows the complexity of fruit and barrel to really drive our profile.” This is really the magic of mellowing for Jack Daniel’s. The charcoal absorbs most of the grainy/corn quality of our new make whiskey. “The only thing that would be added is trace amounts of minerals found naturally in the charred wood (such as calcium),” he said. If it’s filtered, does that mean stuff is being taken out of the spirit? Or, as was the popular opinion in the 1990s when I was learning about whiskey, is there also an addition of flavor, a vague “sooty” sweetness, from the maple charcoal?Ĭhris Fletcher, the master distiller at Jack Daniel’s, has something to say about that. But before they go into the barrel, they are “mellowed” (or filtered or “leached”) by passing through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal (and a wool blanket, which folks usually forget). Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel each meet all the federal “standards of identity” requirements to be called bourbon: more than 50 percent corn, distilled to less than 160 proof and put in a new, charred oak container at 125 proof or less.all that jazz. The heart of the question is the Lincoln County Process, the essential, required-by-Tennessee-law difference. The question remains, though, because people keep asking it: i s Tennessee whisky bourbon or not? The difference, as Austin emphasizes, is choosing particular barrels to create a particular style of whiskey. Same mash, same fermentation process, same aging protocol using the the same barrels in the same warehouses. This Dickel Bourbon is made the same way as Dickel Tennessee whisky. What’s the best thing you could do with them? This.” We had a lot of them to blend them away to make Tennessee whisky would have been a shame. “These barrels express vanilla, fruit, the light oak notes you’d want from a bourbon. “The barrels I was choosing for the bourbon dialed those back, or even down all the way,” she noted. The waxy fruit really comes out in those older barrels.” Dickel 12 is a complex blend, and some of it’s pretty old. The boldness and the waxy fruit character and big oak. 12 is “the most classic Tennessee whisky at Dickel. 12 Tennessee whisky?Įssentially whether the brand calls it bourbon or Tennessee whiskey is Austin’s call. So what is the difference between this bourbon and the brand’s signature No. No, Dickel Bourbon comes from the same mashbill, yeast strain, distillation, filtration and aging regimen that produce Dickel No. As Austin said, “you’re welcome, world.”īut where did a Dickel bourbon come from? Has this been a secret project that’s finally coming to fruition? It’s 90 proof, 8-years-old, at a suggested retail price of $33. The new bourbon is going to be a regular bottling, not a one-off like the excellent bonded bottlings of Dickel Tennessee Whisky she released the past three summers. It’s for real, and I’ve been drinking it with pleasure over the past several weeks. You might suspect that she was slyly poking fun at this bar debate by deciding to release George Dickel Bourbon Whisky, but she’s completely serious about the category. She is the master distiller and general manager at the Cascade Hollow Distillery in Tullahoma, Tennessee, which is home to George Dickel. Austin knows this controversy all too well. “You’d be surprised, but people are mean on the Internet,” remarked Nicole Austin when we recently chatted. Someone innocent-or a troll-will ask, is Jack Daniel’s or George Dickel actually bourbon? It usually starts an argument, with statements brasher than mine flying about. That’s when he said, “I don’t care what the label says, you two are outta here!” So we went and found a bar with Knob Creek, and were treated like gentlemen.Īnyone who has ever visited a Facebook or Reddit bourbon group has probably seen something very similar to this exchange. She looked at it and said, “You know, they’re right, it doesn’t say ‘bourbon’ anywhere on the label.” Then his partner picked up the bottle of Jack. The bartender got stubborn and we went back and forth a bit. “Yeah, Jack’s not bourbon, it’s Tennessee whiskey.”
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