Gentleman Jack

Part 4 in a series- The Value of Glass

The rolling hill country just outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee, a stone building with broad front porch plus a guide in overalls - -the atmosphere at the Jack Daniel Distillery was a combination of mountain moonshine and southern hospitality. And here I was on a quest for recycled glass.

The story: In the later 1800’s when he was just 13, Jack Daniel of Moore County, Tennessee, helped a local preacher run a whiskey still. The preacher ran the still, but while helping him, Jack learned the recipe. Now when the preacher finally made his choice to go entirely for God and give up his still, the recipe fell to Jack.

That’s pretty much how our tour of Jack Daniel Distillery started as we followed our tale-telling guide, Roger, pouring out history in authentic Tennessee twang. “Here’s the site where it all started. This here was Jack’s office and this safe right here is what broke Jack’s toe and caused him to get gangrene and die, leaving the recipe and the business to his nephew Lem.”

If Roger-in-overalls made the tour interesting and fun, he made another point more emphatically - - every step in the Jack Daniel whiskey process is exceedingly quality-controlled.

Recipe:
Corn from Illinois and Indiana = 80%
Barley from Minnesota = 12%
Rye from Wyoming = 8%
Limestone filtered spring water
Ferment in 40,000 gallon vats

Charcoal: To make white lightning sour mash into whiskey, it drips through vats 10 feet deep in charcoal. The only way to be certain the charcoal is pure of chemicals is to make it yourself from hard sugar maple wood. Jack’s charcoal is made right here.

Spring water: Roger-in-overalls took us to the mouth of a cave on the property from where the limestone filtered spring water flows. He told the importance of water with no iron and the value of Jack knowing the whereabouts of the water for the preacher’s whiskey. Jack bought the spring. The distillery now owns 900 acres all around the spring to ensure that no farming with chemicals can occur to affect the purity of the water.

Barrels: Aging in the barrels gives the whiskey its unique flavor and color. A Jack Daniel cooper makes the whiskey barrels out of American white oak, caramelizing the inside of the barrel with fire. The amber color of whiskey comes from the wood of the barrel where it sits for 7 years, the barrels expanding and contracting with the seasons.

Bottles: We’d arrived too late to see the bottling process. As you recall, we’d spent the morning sifting through glass pebbles with Hazel Mobley at Strategic Materials in Atlanta. But it wasn’t the whiskey pouring that interested me; I wanted to know about the square bottles. I made my way to the front of the tour group to ask Roger, “Do you make your own bottles too?” “No ma’am. The bottles are manufactured by Owens-Illinois.” I recalled that Owens-Illinois was on Hazel’s list of glass manufactures that buy cullet.

I think that’s the picture Hazel wanted me to see when she suggested this visit. For all the hyper detail to perfection and control in whiskey making, at Jack Daniel they trust the glass to be what it always is - - safe, inert and consistent with Jack’s whiskey, molded to Jack’s own bottle style, 100% recyclable forever.

Really . . . Jack Daniels in plastic? If you find it that way, don’t drink it. It ain’t real.