In 1864, Jack Daniel left home and was taken in by Reverend Dan Call. At the Call family farm, he learns the art of whiskey making from the preacher and an enslaved man named Nathan “Nearest” Green. The Jack Daniel Distillery was officially established in 1866, making it the very first registered distillery within the US, with Jack as the Master Distiller.

The process of making Jack Daniel’s whiskey starts with the mash bill, a mixture of corn, barley, and rye, that is mixed with iron-free water before being fermented for six days. From there it is distilled in a large copper still. Once distilled to 140-proof, the clear, un-aged whiskey is sent on a painstaking journey through charcoal at a pace dictated by gravity and nothing else. The trip takes 3-5 days to complete and once it’s done, the whiskey is transformed. This process is known as “charcoal mellowing” and imparts the distinctive smoothness folks expect from Jack Daniel’s.

The whiskey is then aged in new, handcrafted white oak barrels  with toasted and charred interior that coax the wood’s natural sugars out and caramelize them, adding to the flavor of the whiskey.  Their whiskey is only deemed ready for bottling when it tastes ready.  They rely on a team of accomplished whiskey tasters to sample each and every barrel, looking for tell-tale subtleties of flavor and character that tell them when a whiskey is ready for bottling.