Jack Daniels selling whole barrels of whiskey

[MikeHunt]

Jack Daniel's selling whole barrels of 94-proof whiskey

By RICHARD LAWSON

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. -- In a cold warehouse poking over the trees atop a hill, the smell of whiskey and charred wood aging hangs in the air, reminding visitors of the building's purpose.

The long rows of ricks, or wooden planks, stored over seven floors, hold more than 20,000 barrels of Jack Daniel's whiskey in various stages of aging. Some of the barrels have last year's date written on the top. Others go back several years.

For about $9,000, you can buy one.

That's right, the whole barrel of Jack Daniel's premium brand Single Barrel for you and 239 of your closest friends. Each barrel averages about 240 bottles, all of them 94-proof.

When you do buy a barrel, your name can be burned onto wood panels on a distillery wall. Country singer George Strait has bought one. Military bases around the country have bought them. Then there's a buyer identified only as "The Immortal Head Bubba."

For Jack Daniel's owner -- Louisville-based Brown-Forman Corp. -- selling its finest aged whiskey by the barrel is another way to build the company's leading spirits brand and its upscale image.

"This is the talking program," said Jimmy Bedford, master distiller at Jack Daniel.

Brown-Forman plans to infuse more marketing dollars into the "buy the barrel" program to boost that end of the brand. Brown-Forman started selling by the barrel four years ago because consumers demanded it, and sales have risen each year. So far, about 1,600 barrels have been purchased.

"A lot of it has been word of mouth," said Mark Grindstaff, brand manager for Jack Daniel's Single Barrel. In the months to come, Grindstaff said the Single Barrel brand could be touted via more event sponsorships and partnerships with magazines such as Cigar Aficionado and Robb Report, all in an attempt to reach higher-income whiskey lovers.

Single barrel sales are all about status. A bottle of Single Barrel premium whiskey typically carries a retail price of $39.99. Buying a barrel reduces the price per bottle by no more than a couple of bucks.

"People really don't buy it to get a better price," Grindstaff said. Instead, it's the cachet of buying a barrel that contains whiskey unique to that particular batch.

Single Barrel gets extra special care in the warehouse. Aging takes place in the warehouse's top rick, known as the "buzzard roost." According to Jack Daniel's officials, the whiskey ages best at the top of the roost because of the extremes in temperatures. It's colder in the winter and warmer in the summer.

The warmth opens up the wood more, letting it soak up the whiskey. Cold weather forces the barrels to constrict, pushing the whiskey and its unique flavors back out of the wood.

Big spenders who buy a barrel get special treatment. The distillery often puts buyers up for the night in the swanky Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville.

Bedford pulls samples from four barrels for tasting, and the buyer chooses one. The "rejected" whiskey is bottled and goes to retailers.

Once a buyer picks a barrel, its whiskey is bottled, and each bottle carries an engraved medallion around its neck commemorating whatever the buyer wants.

Commemorative bottles have been popular with rallies of Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners. Rick Osgood, a Harley enthusiast and chief compliance officer for U.S. Auto, a Nashville-based car insurance company, said he bought a bottle at a Harley rally two years ago and never drank the stuff.

"I made sure everybody at home knows that this bottle is not be opened but to sit there," he said.

[Kooperman]

A keg party for the upwardly mobile crowd....

[MikeHunt]

yeah...Koop...party is at DAIC's house....a real kegger for the BeatKing elite

[Kooperman]

Dude may bring home Courtney Love or somebody suave...just to show 'em his keg.

[MxRob]

Umm whiskey my favorite.

I ve never had this type but I drink Gentlemans Jack like water.lol :dudeasincool:

[MikeHunt]

hmmm.... Dude & Courtney.....and a keg of Jack Daniels

aaaaahhh.... the possibilities. :D :wha': :rotfl: :dancin: :horny:

[slum_goddess]

cool, the Alabama 3's favorite booze. B) 'after three days of drinking w/Larry Love...' :P (from the original 'Woke Up This Morning' (what you'll never hear on the Sopranos).

[Shawn]

For the last year I drank, I moved away from beer and towards harder liquor. However, I can't say I ever really took a shine to JD.

I was a Bean man.

Then a sleep on the floor, or perhaps in the hallway, or on the lawn of my apartment building man. Hard to really miss that shit. :rolleyes:

[DudeAsInCool]

If I were to have a fling with Courtney, the choice would be Wild Turkey. Can you believe I actually drank more than a half bottle one night?

But my choice now is a keggar of chilled Stoli.. :Here's to you:

[slum_goddess]

Can you believe I actually drank more than a half bottle one night?

i sure can...can you believe i (5'2", 95 lbs) drank an entire bottle of JD at Jones Beach three summers ago? not the first time i killed over a litre of booze--never again (i promised my friends--thank fuck they're still friends, well one of them is).

[Kooperman]

When I was in college I had the wonderful experience of waking up one morning with a bug crawling across my face; after I managed to pry an eyelid open I saw sidewalk....with feet walking slowly past, after they had looked at my still-drunk ass sprawled out in the grass next to a drainage ditch. I pulled my spastic limbs up and managed to stagger into my friend's apartment, where the front door was wide open. He was heaped in his bed, like a sack of laundry that had been carelessly dropped. I fuzzily remembered us going to a party the night before, and I remembered us drinking a lot. The last thing I remember was seeing him passed out in the bathroom, one hand curled around the toilet.

I don't miss those days for sure . I don't think my friend does either..he's the Dean Of Students at the university now.

[MxRob]

Geez some of ya have had it hard.

An old man that I knew told me about a key thing in life when I was younger. "Moderation" :Here's to you:

[Kooperman]

The "Excessive 70's" was an aptly named decade.....