Jack Daniel’s 10YO makes global debut
Brown-Forman-owned Jack Daniel’s has introduced its 10-year-old whiskey to international markets for the first time.
Until now, the Tennessee-based whiskey producer has never offered its age-statement expressions outside of the US, but in a private virtual tasting of the brand’s 10-year-old expression on Tuesday (1 April), The Spirits Business became one of the first to sample the decade-old liquid in the UK.
The tasting was hosted by Jack Daniel’s master distiller Chris Fletcher, who joined virtually from his office at the distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Fletcher explained that over the last decade, he has been experimenting to develop a product that would honour the whiskey that the brand was bottling at the end of the 1800’s.
“This is an exciting time with the innovation that we’ve done here out of Lynchburg in the last few years,” Fletcher said. “You know, it’s just a great time to be making whiskey, and specifically American whiskey, and to be able to recreate products from our past. But now having the international opportunity – sharing it with our friends around the globe and not just in the US – it adds even more excitement.”
To create this new 10-year-old permanent expression, Fletcher evolved the distillery’s previous ageing methods by maturing Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey in oak barrels that were carefully selected and moved from hot upper floors to cooler bottom floors to control extraction and flavour and create the best possible liquid.
Fletcher explained that the barrel location for the curation of this expression is critical, as on the upper floors of the warehouse, which sees intense heats of over 100°F/40°C, the whiskey can become ‘over-oaked’ much faster. In addition, he explained that after eight to nine years of ageing, especially on these upper floors, there is a risk of over-extraction, and continuous summer heat exposure can accelerate negative ageing effects.
However, risks are also present on the lower floors of the warehouse, where slower extraction and lower temperatures can cause the ABV to drop too much. The key, he explained, is therefore finding the most balanced whiskey possible by carefully managing barrel location, heat exposure, and extraction.
Fletcher noted that this is the fourth time the brand has released a 10-year-old whiskey, but until now, all releases have only been made available in the US. “We plan and hope and continue to be able to make a little more of this as years go along. However, a 10-year-old ageing time period here in the US is pretty extensive. In other parts of the world, and other styles of whisky, it might not be as extensive, or as hard to keep product in the barrel as it is here in Tennessee with that new oak barrel.”
The whiskey, aged in new charred oak barrels, is a blend of 80% corn, 12% malted barley, and 8% rye, and is bottled at 48.5% ABV.
On tasting, Fletcher finds notes of caramelised fruit, hard cherry candy, honey, toffee, light brown sugar and oak, with sweetness concentrated at the tip of the tongue. He also described the finish as dry, earthy and herbaceous, and said that compared with the younger Old No. 7, this 10-year-old has more caramelised, cooked fruit notes rather than fresh fruit flavours, with a richer, more developed flavour profile due to the extended ageing.
Recreating history
Over the last decade, Fletcher explained that he has seen a growing interest in American whiskey and its production details, which has provided an opportunity to showcase the brand’s craftsmanship through aged expressions.
As such, the brand has been on an innovation path, with the H series launched in 2021 and the 10-year-old first released in the US.
Fletcher mentioned that the brand’s goal is to recreate Jack Daniel’s original lineup of age-statement whiskeys from the early 1900s, with the hope of developing other age statements, such as 12-, 14-, 18-, and 21-year-old expressions.
As such, the team is currently holding back more barrels to support this expansion. However, they are taking a careful approach, focusing on creating the best possible whiskey at each age point.
Fletcher added that the 10-year-old was initially only launched in the US “simply because we didn’t have a lot of liquid. This project started pretty small, just holding back what we thought would make the best 10-year-old whiskey, and then, of course, the best 12-year-old, and then the goal would be to recreate the original lineup of age-stated whiskeys that Mr Jack did, the ones that we’ve seen in our records and our archives. And so that’s the journey that we’re on, is to try to put the best whiskey in the bottle at each of those time points, each of those years.
“This is about recreating our history and telling our story of making whiskey here in Tennessee, and so to be in this role, in this office, and to be able to get these age-stated expressions back out for people to enjoy all around the world now, [is exciting].”
He continued: “Even in the US, [these whiskeys] haven’t been released in over 100 years. We’re talking early 1900s here. And back at that time, we didn’t have any international distribution – we didn’t start distributing our product globally until the middle 1980s – so much more recent than when Mr Jack Daniel was putting age statements on his Old No. 7 whiskey back in the early 1900s – and so what a special day to be able to share this with you all, and to be able to send some of this around the world. It’s been a journey.”
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