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HomeWhiskeyGentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey Evaluation – The Whiskey Reviewer

Gentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey Evaluation – The Whiskey Reviewer


By Richard Thomas

Ranking: B-

Gentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey Evaluation – The Whiskey Reviewer
Gents Jack Tennessee Whiskey
(Credit score: Richard Thomas)

After I sampled Gentleman Jack and took my notes some days in the past with an eye fixed on making it my final evaluation work of 2024, I did so anticipating to revise and replace a evaluation from greater than ten years in the past. I took it utterly with no consideration that both I or a member of the workforce had coated this Tennessee Whiskey greater than a decade in the past, so ubiquitous is the expression. Think about my shock after I found that was not the case!

That sums up the place Gents Jack holds with whiskey lovers effectively, I feel. This bottle was the primary common model extension of Jack Daniel’s in fashionable instances: all different prior variations of Mr. Jack’s whiskey are a model of a recognizable label courting to the distillery’s refoundation within the late Thirties or else after the World Conflict Two manufacturing hiccup. So, when the choice was made in 1988 to create Gentleman Jack, it had been 4 a long time because the firm had seen a must do something each new and produced to occupy steady shelf area.

Cease and take into consideration what was occurring in American whiskey in 1988. Inside Jack Daniel’s, the corporate had solely caught up with the ever-swelling demand for its merchandise around the globe earlier within the decade. The remainder of the American whiskey business had hit all-time low throughout those self same years, however in Kentucky distillers have been starting to search for methods to revive their fortunes. Heaven Hill launched the primary Elijah Craig 12 Yr Outdated Small Batch in 1986; Blanton’s Single Barrel got here out in 1984.

When Gentleman Jack got here out, it was on the junction of Jimmy Bedford beginning his tenure as Grasp Distiller and the retirement of Frank Bobo. Given how Gentleman Jack is made, credit score for creating it subsequently goes to Bobo. In utilizing their newfound respiratory area in manufacturing and following the spirit of instances exemplified by Elijah Craig, Blanton’s and Maker’s Mark,  Jack Daniel’s selected to double down on what made them particular: the Lincoln County Course of. The whiskey going into Gentleman Jack receives two separate filtration runs by way of the distillery’s sugar maple charcoal vats. That ought to be thought-about extra usually than it’s, as a result of that places Gentleman Jack on a completely separate observe to bottling from the second the brand new make leaves the stillhouse. The double mellowed Gentleman Jack whiskey shares can’t return to make Single Barrel or Coy Hill or anything popping out of Lynchburg, excepting maybe a one-shot restricted version bottling that additionally bears that “double mellowing” tag. It’s fairly a put aside, when one stops to consider it.

Aside from that, Gentleman Jack is thought for being matured on the decrease flowers of Lynchburg’s rickhouses. For the reason that thought is to lean arduous on the model’s signature mellowness, it has all the time been bottled at 80 proof. When launched, Jack Daniel’s Outdated No. 7 (“Black Label”) was bottled at 90 proof, earlier than being lower to 86 and at last 80 proof in 2002. Within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, Outdated No. 7 was noticeable stronger in addition to being solely half as mellowed, so the distinction between the 2 expressions was a lot wider.

The Whiskey
Although whiskey derives its shade from the barrel it’s aged in, the coloring of Gentleman Jack is coincidentally reflective of its double filtration: it’s a pale, dulled tackle mild amber. I discovered the nostril blended a basis of caramel and cinnamon with notes of banana and citrus. Sipping is supremely mellow, with the benchmark brown sugar and vanilla accented by a contact of banana and a light-weight presence of oak. The end is a faint one, however decidedly charred wooden regardless of the lightness.

Gentleman Jack has been disregarded by different writers for its lack of character, and today it being too much like Outdated No. 7 is tacked onto that critique. Though Jack Black Label has moved nearer to Gentleman Jack over the a long time, the 2 are nonetheless fairly distinct, so we will low cost the newer level as coming from prejudice and ignorance. As for the previous, I don’t suppose Gentleman Jack goes to attain marks with whiskey lovers, who typically change into lovers in quest of qualities this expression was designed to attenuate or remove. These very qualities, nonetheless, make it a pure alternative for informal drinkers who attain for whiskey solely every now and then. What leaves it missing for the fanatic makes it a strong alternative for almost everybody else.

The Value
A survey of on-line retailers exhibits you’ll be able to decide this bottle up for as little as $23, and positively shouldn’t pay greater than $30 for a 750ml bottle.



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