For many, “Jack and Coke” means “bourbon and Coke.” Truth is, Jack Daniel’s isn’t a bourbon at all. It’s a Tennessee whiskey, known for a unique charcoal filtering technique that leaves it rich, sweet, and a little spicy. The filtering is an added step that bourbon doesn’t get; otherwise, they’re pretty much created in the same way, making them distant cousins—but not brothers.
Speaking of brothers, and sisters too, the whiskey’s namesake, Jack Daniel, had them—12 of ’em. Because of the economic hardships of his large family in early Tennessee, little Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel was raised by a family friend six years after his birth in 1850. It wasn’t long before he was hired by a Lutheran minister to help run a burgeoning whiskey still on Tennessee’s intriguingly named Louse River. And by the ripe old age of 13, Jack was handed the keys to the still—and his future—when the minister decided to focus on the Holy Spirit instead of the holding spirit.
