Distiller's Corner

You’ve probably tasted his life’s work, perhaps too much from time to time, but few people know the mysterious man behind one of America’s most celebrated whiskey labels.  From his mysterious birth to his famous last words, “One last drink, please,” Jack Daniel lived a curious life with a long lasting legacy.  For starters, fans of his beverage should note that the distiller’s actual name was “Jack Daniel,” as opposed to “Jack Daniels,” a common mistake likely resulting from years of packaging and marketing containing the phrase “Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey.”

The exact date of Daniel’s birth is up for debate, as the original birth certificate and further documentation was destroyed in a courthouse fire.  The official company website would have you believe that Jack Daniel was born in 1950, though some records suggest his mother died in 1947, and with no verified cases of posthumous birth on record, the 1950 claim has come into question.  The company also claims its original distillery was opened by Daniel in 1966, meaning he was only 16 when he first set up shop.  This date has also come into question as land and deed titles would indicate a 1975 official opening.  It is commonly believed Daniel was in fact born in 1946. Depending on who you believe, or whether the distillery was operating unsanctioned for its first 9 years, Daniel began his now legendary whiskey operation at either the age of either 20 or 29.  Daniel’s life would center around his work as he never married or had children of his own, though he was very close with his nephew, Lem Motlow, who he groomed to take over his distillery, and keep the business in the family. Click here to read more.. »

When Bill Samuels Sr. sold the family distillery in 1943, one might think the bourbon business would be over for the Kentucky gentleman, but Samuels had no intention of getting out of the whiskey game entirely.  What Samuels knew, and what the rest of America would catch up to decades later, is that whiskey needed a facelift, if not a complete reworking as a product.  Back in the 40’s and 50’s, well frankly any time before the small batch bourbon revolution, whiskey was seen as a mere means to an end, not something to be enjoyed along the way.  The taste was sharp, biting and downright nasty, but much to the chagrin of Samuels and other forward thinking whiskey enthusiasts, this is how the general public enjoyed their whiskey.  Whiskey was for men, and not just regular men, manly men, a form of punishment to close out a day of hard work.

Samuels, and probably a few others, had an idea in mind, “Why can’t whiskey taste good?”  In 1953, Samuels set up shop in Loretto, KY, finally having found the perfect size distillery with which to carry out his whiskey reinvention operation.  Allegedly taking a match to his family’s 170-year-old whiskey recipe (Samuels was a 6^th generation whiskey distiller, after all), he set out to tinker with the age old whiskey-making process.  A full 5 years later, Samuels emerged with the first bottle of what would become Maker’s Mark whiskey, with its top dipped in the now patented red wax seal. Click here to read more.. »

Call it “hooch,” call it “white lightning,” call it the original “Mountain Dew,” whatever you call it, Americans have been making moonshine, or illegally distilled liquor, dating back decades, with a particularly heightened interest in the process spiking during the Prohibition Era, from 1920 to 1933. Moonshining is a well known process in mainstream America, easily recognized by its iconic mason jars, used to bottle the product through much of its early years of production. Historically, moonshine has been particularly prevalent in the Appalachian region of the United States, where many people have traditionally operated small scale distilleries providing their very own, albeit contraband, whiskey.  In fact, the name “moonshine” stems from the illegal nature of the products manufacturing as unlicensed distillers were forced to work at night time, or “by the light of the moon,” in order to produce their liquor without arousing the suspicion of local law enforcement. Click here to read more.. »

A survey of recently turned 21 year olds in bars across America would reveal an alarming number of self-proclaimed whiskey drinkers who could not answer the simple question, “What is the difference between bourbon and whiskey?”  Strangely, the exact same newly minted adults could probably tell you the exact difference between Bud Light and Bud Select, probably even Smirnoff Ice and Zima, but for some reason the finer points of whiskey distillery have eluded the younger generations of drinkers.  To answer the question, simply ask yourself, “What is the difference between a square and a rectangle?”

As you may or may not remember from middle school geometry class, all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.  A square is a specific variety of the larger group of rectangles, requiring more stringent qualification barriers.  While a rectangle needs only have 4 sides with 90 degree angles between them, a square goes a step further, specifying that each of those 4 sides must be the exact same length.  In this analogy, whiskey is the rectangle and bourbon is the square, thus all bourbons are a type of whiskey, but not all whiskeys qualify as bourbon. Click here to read more.. »

Whether you’re enjoying a neat martini at the local singles bar or you’re a 17^th century pirate clinging to a bottle of rum on the high seas, your life has been subtly enriched by a centuries old process known as distillation.  While not exclusively pertaining to alcoholic spirits, distillation is a method used to separate mixtures based on their volatility (or tendency to vaporize) in a boiling liquid mixture.  For the purpose of adult beverages, distillation is applied to fermented grain, fruit or vegetables in an effort to produce drinkable liquids with a greater alcohol content.

The distillation basics have more or less gone unchanged since the 8^th century.  One of the first distillation tactics put into use was “freeze distillation,” whereby a product is partially frozen, enabling the easy identification of higher alcohol concentrated areas, based on various degrees of freezing temperature, allowing for the removal or optimization of lower concentration zones.  Freeze distillation was particularly common in Central Asia during the middle ages in what would be modern day Mongolia.  More high tech improvements on the distillation process expounded as centuries passed.  Fractional distillation came into practice during the 13^th century.  In fractional distillation, a mixture is heated, as opposed to frozen, to its boiling point, allowing for the separation of chemical compounds at differing temperatures. Click here to read more.. »