Jack Daniel's Original (No.7)

One time when I was on an air flight the guy sitting across from me said, "I'm Mr. Jack and Coke." He had at least three 'Jack and Cokes' on that flight. I should have paid more attention to him. He knew what he was talking about

I would dearly love to love every single beverage for which I pay money. I don't get my jollies from writing off commercial products as swill. Still, there are those I just can't quite bring myself to liking,...without Coca-Cola

This review is from a mini, because I have never yet had the motivation to buy a full bottle of Jack Daniel's Original Old No. 7. I've had a few other minis of Old No. 7 before, mostly to remind myself of what it tastes like (for $ 0.99 plus .10 tax) and to re-use the mini bottles

Nose: this is quite a decent nose. Lots of gravelly char and black licorice accompany sweet and sour caramel and some spice from rye. I can actually taste the Lincoln County Process maple in this particular sample. I usually can't make it out

Taste: not a bad translation of flavours from the nose, but a sour influence just settles in with the char and maple. The wood flavours are young, and just so-so

Finish: here's what I have trouble with. Sour charry black licorice with sweet maple thrown over the top. Sampled neat, I just do not like Original Old No. 7's finish, at all

Balance: you can't have a good whiskey with a bad finish. I notice that Jim Murray has been scoring all of the Jack Daniel's products rather highly of late. I'll look forward to see if more recent batches are much different from this one. I did have one drink of Jack No. 7 out at a restaurant (blind) which I never would have identified as Jack Daniel's...so who knows?

I've seen too much variation up and down in quality to ever rule out that I will later like the products of a distillery which left me cold at first. So, maybe one day I will like Jack Daniel's products. So far I have only had one day's sampling of one particular bottle of the Jack Daniel's Single Barrel product, which I have liked, out of, maybe, 15+ samples of Jack Daniel's Original, Gentleman Jack, and Single Barrel

But you know what? Jack Daniel's Original Old No. 7 tastes really great with Coca-Cola! I didn't discover that until I was 58 years old. That guy on the airplane knew what he was talking about...he wasn't drinking it neat!

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