It’s kind of crazy to think that, well into the 1990s, Jack Daniel’s had two expressions, each made from the same mashbill. There was the famous Old No. 7 Tennessee sour mash, of course, which remains the world’s best-selling American whiskey by a pretty fair margin. And there was Gentleman Jack, introduced in the late ‘80s, which Old No. 7 that had undergone a second round of charcoal mellowing after aging and was bottled at a lower proof. And… that was it.
It’s also kind of crazy to think about at how many JD variations have sprung to life in the last decade or so, from Tennessee Honey to Sinatra Select to canned Jack-and-Cokes. Even those, however, are still variations on the Old No. 7 theme. The truly seismic departure in the Jack Daniel’s lineup took place in 2011, when the distillery began making rye whiskey. Rye, of course, has always been a part of Jack Daniel’s whiskeys, accounting for 8% of the classic mashbill. But taking that rye (which is sourced from Canada, in case you’re wondering) and making it the predominant grain… well, that’s a huge deal. Consumers got to taste Jack Daniel’s rye at different points in its development — an unaged version was briefly released, and then a two-year-old expression. In 2015 the first bottles of their Single Barrel Rye hit shelves, followed in 2017 by Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Rye, bottled at 45% ABV and seemingly a cornerstone of the line.
The Bonded Rye bottle is modeled on an 1890s-vintage Jack Daniel’s bottle, and its long neck is … [+]
But barely half a decade later, Tennessee Rye is gone, replaced by Jack Daniel’s Bonded Rye — the same whiskey, but beefed up to 50% ABV per the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, and adhering to the other regulations as well (each batch entirely distilled at the same distillery in one six-month distilling season, aged at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse). Jack’s rye has always been noteworthy. Most modern ryes toggle between spicy, brawny, 95-100% rye mashbills (think WhistlePig or Bulleit) and softer, sweeter, barely-legal 51-55% rye mashbills (Woodford Reserve and Rittenhouse, for instance). Jack Daniel’s sits in the middle, clocking in at 70% rye, 18% corn, and 12% malted barley, and it’s both distinctive and delicious — spice-forward, but underpinned by sweet notes of vanilla, pear, green apple and banana.
JD master distiller Chris Fletcher says the brand decided to move forward with more bottled-in-bond releases (the rye is one of three on the permanent roster) because they work so well in cocktails, and indeed, the Bonded Rye makes an absolutely stellar Manhattan, Old Fashioned, and Sazerac — that’s as far as I’ve gotten with the experimentation so far. But it’s also gentle and complex enough for sipping, with or without water.
In sharp contrast to a lot of the whiskeys I write about, Bonded Rye is not a limited edition, and it’s also a hell of a bargain — the suggested retail price for a 700 ml bottle is $31.99. With plenty of it to go around for the foreseeable future, you likely won’t find wildly inflated prices when you go out hunting for a bottle. Which you should do, immediately. A whiskey of this quality, at this price, should be on every back bar and every home liquor shelf (or cabinet or closet or… you get the point).
