Lynchburg Archives - First Pour Cocktails

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof

Posted on March 18, 2023March 13, 2023 by Nick

While there’s debate about Jack Daniel’s designation as bourbon, there’s no denying amongst the bourbon community that Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof tends to be fantastic. Similar to Wild Turkey Rare Breed, this offering appeals to both high proof hunters and those looking for an amped up flavor experience compared to their normal day to day bottle. Unlike Rare Breed, which comes in at 116.8 proof, Jack Daniel’s Barrel Proof comes in between 125 and a whopping 140 proof. With all that proof, can you even taste the whiskey?

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof

Rick #: L-20
Barrel #: 21-07548
Bottled Date: 8-23-21
Proof: 132.4 (66.2%)
Secondary Acronym: JDSBBP / JDSiBBP

Sight: A rich mahogany.

Smell: Spicy caramel and toasted oak start things off, while a bit of heat always seems to flirt around the edges. Brown sugar and maple roll around. Hits of cedar, cherries, banana, and caramelized stone fruits join in. Baking spices and yeasty notes pile in.

Sip: Unsurprisingly, it’s warm, but not burning. The evaporative qualities come quickly, but they give off beautiful notes of cigar, walnut wood, maple, cherries, and spice. So much spice. There’s a pile of cloves and dark chocolate powder. Toasted nuts and creamy pastry get involved. The flavors are deep, complicated, heavily skewed into desserts, wood, and spice. Make no mistake, the heat is always around the edges.

Savor: The ending leaves a prickly finish that slowly dissipates into a mix of spice, dried cherries, and hardwood. The finish lingers with a good amount of tannin.

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof is spicy, chocolate, and complicated. While it is hot, the flavor profile is exceedingly complex and layered. More importantly, the flavors are discernable through the heat, and allow it to be sipped (if slowly). While this isn’t a starter bottle, it’s an amazing choice if you’re a fan of barrel proofers.

In Cocktails

In a Manhattan it’s unsurprisingly massive. The woody notes come through with lots of walnut, but also dark chocolate and almond. Spice joins in and barrels through with lots of caramel, maple, toffee nuts, and nougat. There’s amazing notes of dried banana, preserved cherry, and intense tobacco / cigar. There’s a spice blend and dark tea going on as well. The flavor profile is incredibly bombastic. The heaviness of the Manhattan makes it feel rich. Overall, this is a delicious Manhattan.

In Review – Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof is simply fantastic at $65. For the price point it delivers incredibly massive flavors neat, and then explodes with more in cocktails. Interestingly, this is not the first bottle of JDSBBP that I’ve had and felt this way about. While visiting the Cleveland Cavaliers last year, I had an opportunity to enjoy a different bottle, which was equally exquisite, with more maple, banana bread, banana’s foster, caramelized walnut notes. This is to say that you can expect typical single barrel variation, but that the quality remains high.

While this isn’t a bottle to start your bar with, it is an amazing choice as an expansion bottle for a relatively available barrel proof offering. Absolutely give it a try if you get a chance.

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7

Posted on March 8, 2023February 20, 2023 by Nick

r/Bourbon loves to get locked into a existential argument when the topic of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 comes up. While Jack Daniel’s is a whiskey, it isn’t bourbon mostly because of an extra step (they actually meet all the criteria to technically be bourbon), charcoal mellowing. Once distilled, their whiskey is passed through maple charcoal for roughly 3-5 days. This process imparts additional flavors that Jack suggests are similar to a couple years in the barrel. Regardless of if this is true, they do have a loyal following, and it’s almost ubiquitously available the world over. So what’s it taste like?

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7

Filtration – Maple Charcoal Filtered at distillation
Age – No Age Statement (N.A.S.)
Proof – 80 (40% A.B.V.)

Sight: Amontillado Sherry to Deep Copper

Smell: The nose is soft with a nice amount of cinnamon, smokey wood, and vanilla. There’s a nice amount of caramelized sugar, Christmas spiced orange, and maple wood mixing in the nose as well. Beneath all of it is a little minerality.

Sip: The mouthfeel is light to moderate. Notes of charcoal, maple, wood, orange marmalade, and caramel come forward. The light mouthfeel leaves a bit of minerality and spice. A slightly fruity, almost cantaloupe or honeydew note occurs.

Savor: The ending has a slightly green wood and spice note.

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is light, slightly spicy, and decently mixed between sweet and earthy notes. There are nice occasional bumps of fruit. All those things combine to make a relatively pedestrian sipper that won’t really inspire much interest beyond mindless sipping.

In Cocktails

In a Manhattan there’s a lot of sweetness present from the caramel and vanilla notes. There’s a good amount of oak and maple (wood) going on here, with a slight amount of bitterness. Fruit is sort of present, but perhaps it’s more so the vermouth. The ending picks up the minerality. The flavor is distinctly a Manhattan, but with middling weight and relatively one note flavor.

In Review – Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is a thoroughly average feeling whiskey. The flavor is pleasant if earthy and slightly more sweets forward. There’s nothing particularly deep here, but it also manages to avoid the overlap and cliché profiles of the broader bourbon market. If you like these flavors, then they deliver clearly in spades. Overall, the price point and availability place this right in the correct spot if you find you prefer Tennessee Whiskey to Kentucky Bourbon.