Last autumn, Jack Daniel’s made its entry into American single malt (ASM) with its Twice Barreled American single malt, a limited expression that was part of its Special Releases series. Now Jack has taken the next step into ASM with today’s release of Jack Daniel’s American Single Malt, which for now will be available in Travel Retail only. It will take some time for this whiskey to become part of the permanent lineup, but that’s the clear direction.
The new Jack Daniel’s American Single Malt is effectively the same liquid that formed the Special Releases series, and it’s quite the sherried affair. The whiskey was made from a mashbill of 100% pale malt, which is different from the distiller’s malt used in all other Jack Daniel’s whiskeys. Though it carries no age statement, the whiskey was distilled and barreled in 2015, entering new charred and toasted barrels. In early 2020 it was filled into sherry butts—the 500-liter casks from Jerez that are two and a half times the size of a standard American whiskey barrel. It spent three years in those casks, longer than the Special Release expression, in what amounted to a full secondary maturation rather than a simple finishing.
Master distiller Chris Fletcher takes great pains to emphasize that this is a Tennessee expression of the single malt style and does not seek to emulate Scotland, and in tasting the whiskey there’s no doubt it’s true. But the Scottish influence did play a significant role in its conceptualization. Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman owns three single malt distilleries in Scotland—Glendronach, Benriach, and Glenglassaugh. In 2018, as Fletcher’s single malt was quietly aging in the Jack Daniel warehouses, he traveled to Scotland to taste through some single malts. Glendronach, famous for its sherry-finished whiskies, became a big influence.
“As we tasted through them, and especially with Glendronach, we began to feel that the sherry character would benefit our malt,” Fletcher says, enriching and sweetening some of the more grassy notes in new barrel-aged barley distillate. He looked at PX and oloroso casks before settling on oloroso. In early 2020, over 300 sherry butts were delivered to the Lynchburg distillery’s doorstep, to be filled with American single malt. Those casks were sourced from Antonio Paez Lobato cooperage, the same place used by Glendronach and Brown-Forman’s Irish distillery, Slane. There was a lot to experience—for starters, the sherry butts are too big to fit in rickhouses, though Jack Daniel does have some palletized warehouses that could be utilized. Then came all the tasting and sampling involved in achieving the correct balance.
Bottled at 45% ABV, which is lower than the 53.05%-55.9% of the Special Release barrels, this whiskey gets the same 10 feet of charcoal mellowing as the Tennessee whiskey (the rye gets only three feet.) The whiskey itself? Despite its relatively lengthy aging, it has a certain freshness and vibrancy, giving off notes of fresh cherry, milk chocolate, and red berries. While perhaps lacking some of the depth and complexity of the best single malt scotches, it does indeed have its own New World character.
For now, Jack Daniel’s American Single Malt will be available in a 1-liter size only, priced in global Travel Retail at $100. Given the path taken by the whiskeys in the Jack Daniel’s Bonded Series, which began life in Travel Retail and are now permanent expressions, it seems only a matter of time before this single malt joins the Jack Daniel’s lineup on a full-time basis.
