The Only Type Of Wood You'll Find In Jack Daniel's Barrels

You might not think about it much if your preferred preparation is to drown it in Coke, but Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey is made not only with a precise recipe, but also with particular procedures and meticulous materials that have helped keep it flowing since the 1800s. Its famously square bottles are not filled merely with distilled corn, barley, rye, and spring water. The mix has also been mellowed with charcoal, a step known as the Lincoln County process, which is legally required to call anything "Tennessee Whiskey." Jack is also aged exclusively in new charred white oak barrels, satisfying another legal requirement of this highly regulated craft.

These barrels are actually responsible for a lot of Jack Daniel's' signature flavor. Barrels are handmade, such that no two are exactly alike, and their interiors are toasted to fire up the wood's rustic notes — notes ultimately transferred to the whiskey. Each also imbues only one batch of whiskey, but many go on to other culinary, or even design, uses.

Any American spirit that wants to occupy the bourbon category, which does technically include Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey, is required to be aged in brand new charred oak. This bit of specificity seems thanks, in part, to Prohibition. After more than a decade of alcohol bans, the bootleg hooch that flooded the market seemed to inspire this detail once lawmakers started setting new standards.

Now, "bourbon" cannot be made under this name outside of the United States, so there's no such thing as bourbon aged in anything other than new charred oak. However, whiskey is made worldwide, and while oak is a prevailing material all over the globe, it needn't be new the way it must be here. Scotch, for example, can be made in barrels that previously held wine or sherry. The same goes for Irish whiskey. We'll likely never know what a sip of Jack would taste like were it to come to life in a cask previously soaked in, say, port, but at least we know it always pairs perfectly with soda.