Reviewers go whiskey tasting at Jack Daniel’s headquarters

Welcome back to your favorite weekly article. We hope you all had a fun spring break and remembered to stop@buzzed! Here at ABC Reviews, we pride ourselves on our ability to bring you new and wonderful experiences and beverages.

To do that, last week we took part of our spring break to visit the place in the world that is rumored to be the only direct cure for heartbreak.

That is right, we made our way to Lynchburg, Tennessee and found ourselves at the largest whiskey producer in the world, Jack Daniels Distillery.

If you are of age, remember to stop@buzzed.

We decided to go on the Angel’s Share Tour, which had more expensive whiskeys for the taste test.

The hour and a half tour consisted of seeing each step in the distilling process, a brief overview of the history of the beverages and company, and a taste testing at the end.

The tour started with a big slurp of 140 proof or 70% ABV moonshine out of our hands, which is quite an experience in itself if you haven’t had the pleasure.

It is a whole different experience at 9:45 am on a Monday after spending the last two nights in the honky-tonks of Nashville.

Throughout the tour we were given the opportunity to smell the whiskey at various stages of the distilling process and we both can confirm that it did a better job of waking us up than all the caffeine we had for the drive there.

The first steps in the whiskey-making process are milling and mashing the various grains. Jack Daniel’s consists of various ratios of corn, rye and malted barley.

After that, the mash is combined with yeast and put into a fermenting vat where it sits for about six days. The fermenting process produces heat, which requires them to cool the mixture and maintain it at 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

The newly fermented mixture is then pumped into a heated still. During this stage, the alcohol is condensed back into a liquid form and is still 140 proof at this point.

The alcoholic liquid is then slowly dripped through 10 feet of condensed sugar maple charcoal.

This step is what gives the whiskey its flavor and golden color. The last step is to combine the whiskey with spring water, to lower the proof, and put it into white oak barrels, where it will mature for a range of years.

The building where they keep the barrels to be aged was one of the best smelling places in the world. The old smell of whiskey mixed with aged wet wood was surreal.

It produces a vision of the bars of Lynchburg in the early era of the distillery itself.

The vision could be a result of the ghost of Jack Daniels himself or the lack of sleep.

We will let you decide. Either way, it would make a great candle and they should really be selling those.

The five whiskeys we tasted were the Red Dog Saloon (86 proof, 43% ABV), Sinatra Select (90 proof, 45% ABV), Single Barrel Select (94 proof, 47% ABV), Single Barrel Rye (94 proof, 47%) and finally their Tennessee Tasters Barrel Proof Rye (127.6 proof, 63.8% ABV).

Our favorite of the five whiskeys we tried was the Frank Sinatra Select, which is selling for about $175 right now.

This whiskey was the smoothest and had the most flavor. Of the five, the Sinatra Select had the lightest amber color.

Due to the number of cigarettes Sinatra consumed during his life, his flavor palate was a bit skewed. To mimic this, the insides of the barrel were ribbed. This released more oak flavor than your typical Number 7 Jack Daniels.

The smoke and oakiness was in your face early on, but its finish was smooth with lots of vanilla flavor. Due to not having samples in front of us and already too many words, a short description will be given of the rest of the whiskies.

Red Dog Saloon was a special 125th Anniversary edition that was sweeter and hotter with hints of banana of all things.

Single Barrel Select has a hint of caramel and would go great on a cold November day in the mountains.

Single Barrel Rye displays the spiciness that you could expect from a rye.

If you like a rye, there are worse options than this.

Finally, the Tennessee Tasters Barrel Proof Rye has the spiciness like the last one, but there is a bit of sweetness at the end that we appreciated.

That’s all for this week. If you have any suggestions for what we should finish our last couple of articles with, send them to us.

And if you’re a single Bennie that would be willing to put a Lego Death Star on the wedding registry, we would greatly like to meet you.

Anyways, back to choring.