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Jack Daniel’s goes back to Coy Hill
For its latest single barrel release, Jack Daniel’s has bottled more high proof whiskey from its admired Coy Hill warehouses
In 2021, Jack Daniel’s set the whiskey world on fire when it released Coy Hill High Proof, a single barrel whiskey bottled between 68.7% and 74.15% ABV. Of the brand’s 96 warehouses, those on Coy Hill are the highest elevated, with the limited release whiskey capturing immediate attention for its big proof and quickly achieving collectible status.
For master distiller Chris Fletcher, who grew up at the distillery while his grandfather Frank Bobo held the same role, it is amusing to consider how a once unknown place has been catapulted into Bourbon vernacular.
“Growing up as a kid and knowing Coy Hill, [it] wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone in the world other than the couple of 1,000 people that live in Lynchburg,” Fletcher said. “But now, if you pull up Google and type the words ‘Coy Hill,’ don’t even put whiskey or Jack Daniels or anything in there and see what comes up.”
Jack Daniel’s rereleased High Proof in 2022, and has returned to the Coy Hill warehouses once again for its 2024 single barrel release. Whereas that initial bottling came from warehouses 8 and 13, specifically from what Fletcher calls the ‘buzzard’s roost,’ or the very top of the warehouse where barrels butt up against the roof, this new release was meant to showcase a different aspect of Coy Hill. Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Special Release Coy Hill Barrelhouse 8 comes from one single warehouse, and from the fifth and sixth floors rather than the top.
“If you were able to experience the first release, to be able to take a little bit further of a journey through this and enjoy the complexity and the differences that this process can create,” Fletcher said. “This is about continuing to peel back the layers of how we make whiskey in Lynchburg.”
Coy Hill Barrelhouse 8 is made from Jack Daniel’s traditional recipe of 80% corn, 12% malted barley, and 8% rye. It was barreled on 4 September, 2013, putting it at just shy of 11 years old. The whiskey is bottled at barrel strength, between 61% and 68.75% ABV, and priced at US$80.
“That was trying to turn the dial all the way to 11,” Fletcher says of that debut release, “we are pushing the limits of really trying to get the biggest, the boldest, the most dense whiskey we can create. This is a little more about what we can do to layer on complexity in a more subtle way.”
Proof isn’t the goal
While Coy Hill’s high proof has undoubtedly contributed to a broader trend within American whiskey that sees distillers pushing the limits of ABV, Fletcher says that was never the goal of the first release nor for his return to the label.
“The goal is using this release to explain how we make our whiskey and what makes a difference,” he said. “By moving down to this middle floor, pushing the age to right at 11 years, the complexity and the range of flavour and aroma that you’re going to get in this release. That’s what really got us excited here.”
He says that about half of the people who sit down to pick private barrels for liquor stores and restaurants ask if the barrels came from Coy Hill, and that the notion of high proof or ‘hazmat’ whiskies doesn’t necessarily mean that that proof is ideal for drinking.
“Where that is fun and it is unique and it is nothing if not dense and just deep and dark and full of flavour. For me, I’m dialing that back with some water and probably a big old ice cube right in the middle of it, especially if it’s warm outside,” he said.
The ultimate goal, he says, is to achieve balance and sometimes overpowering heat can work against that. If he does release another crazy high proofed Coy Hill, Fletcher says it will be because the flavour was right.
“The trend of high proof whiskey, I don’t know that that’s going anywhere, but I do think the more overall complexity and balance that we can put in a release, the better it is,” he said. “Some may be really high proof. Some may be less than 120 but as long as that flavour and the quality of the whiskey is there, I think people will continue to learn that it doesn’t just have to be this massive, crazy hazmat proof.”
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