CORPORATIONS: A Sippin1 Whisky

Serious drinkers like to say that there are three kinds of whisky—”cookin’ whisky, drinkin’ whisky, and sippin’ whisky.” To such famed connoisseurs as Lucius Beebe, Novelist William Faulkner and onetime Vice President John Nance Garner, the best sippin’ whisky of all is Jack Daniel’s Old Time Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, a drink as distinct from standard bourbon as bottled in bond is from Old Popskull. Sparingly distilled by a secret, century-old formula in a quiet mountain glen near Lynchburg, Jack Daniel’s has never tried to crash mass markets, never old more than 300,000 cases a year. What makes Jack Daniel’s so special is its clean, slightly smoky taste arid its smooth richness in the gullet. The secret goes back to 1866, when Jack Daniel, a mall (5 ft. 5 in.) tidy young man in ‘rock coat and fawn-colored vest started to make whisky. Using spring water free of iron traces (murderous to whisky), he added the finest white corn, the best rye, barley malt, both fresh and ripe yeast to make a “sour” mash, different from most (fresh yeast only) bourbons. He let it ferment 24 hours longer than ordinary Dourbons, then leached it through vats of sugar-maple charcoal to purify it, and finally aged it four to six years in new, charred whiteoak barrels.

Prizewinner. For years Jack Daniel sold his whisky only in Tennessee and neighboring states. But in 1904, a case found its way to the St. Louis Exposition, and there among the finest names in whisky, unheralded Jack Daniel’s won first prize. After that, Daniel’s went right on winning awards, but the distillery did not try to capitalize on its growing fame. With nephew Lem Motlow running the business (uncle Jack had crippled himself in 1905 angrily trying to kick open his balky office safe), it still held to the old methods, turned out fewer than 800 gals, a day, not much more than an enterprising moonshiner. After Tennessee went dry in 1909, the distillery first moved to St. Louis, later, during Prohibition, shut down completely for almost 20 years. Finally in 1938, five years after the repeal of Prohibition, Lem Motlow managed to push through a law in still-dry Tennessee, under which Jack Daniel’s became the state’s only legal distillery.

“God Forbid.” Since then, with time out once again for World War II, Jack Daniel’s, now run by Lem’s four sons,

President Reagor, Vice Presidents Evans, Conner and Robert, has steadily hiked production to keep up with the soaring demand. Yet the distillery has steered clear of mass production, never grossed more than $14 million to $15 million annually. With traditional attention to detail, the staves of its barrels are still exposed to the weather for twelve months. Says Reagor Motlow: “You get green cooperage, and you’re liable to get a persimmony taste in your whisky, God forbid.”

Last week bourbon-proud Kentucky, which has been casting envious eyes on Tennessee’s Jack Daniel’s for years, paid it the ultimate compliment. Louisville’s Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. (Old Forester, Early Times) bought out Jack Daniel’s stockholders and its Motlow brothers, who owned 55% of the company, took control of the distillery. The price: $20 million in cash. Jack Daniel’s 54-bbl. daily production is only a drop in Brown-Forman’s (500 bbls. daily) bucket. But the name is well worth the price. Brown-Forman President George Garvin Brown carefully and promptly announced that the Motlows will still run Jack Daniel’s in the same old way. But it was still the kind of news to sadden whisky sippers everywhere, and none more than those in Tennessee. Wrote the Nashville Tennessean: “It would not be entirely accurate to say that the Jack Daniel distillery is the only place in Tennessee where whisky is made, but it is a unique institution that never again will seem quite the same now that it has fallen into the hands of Kentuckians.”