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What the Market Calls ‘Flavored Whiskey’ Is Not Always That By This Standard

Flavored whiskey, by one very important standard at least, is not flavored whiskey as you might expect.
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Editor’s Note: This article is reposted with permission of its author.

Jack Daniels, as everyone knows, is whiskey, Tennessee whiskey, to be exact.
But Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire is not whiskey. As the label clearly explains, it is “cinnamon liqueur blended with Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey.” Since the first ingredient listed is typically the largest component, we can assume that’s the case here.
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire (image via Jack Daniel’s)

The official classification of this product, according to the rules of the Treasury Department’s Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is ‘other specialties and proprietaries.’ It is, in effect, a pre-mixed cocktail, the ingredients of which are cinnamon liqueur and Tennessee whiskey.

TTB has a ‘flavored whiskey’ classification, but no one uses it. Most producers of what the market calls ‘flavored whiskey’ use either ‘other specialties and proprietaries’ or ‘whiskey specialty,’ which are basically catch-alls. Or they use the liqueur classification.

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TTB defines flavored whiskey as whiskey to which has been added, “natural flavoring materials, with or without the addition of sugar, and bottled at not less than 60° proof.” That sounds like what most of these products are, so why don’t they just use that? I don’t know. Maybe it’s too on-the-nose. For the specialty classification, “a statement of the classes and types of distilled spirits used in the manufacture thereof shall be deemed a sufficient statement of composition.”

The American whiskey category’s three biggest brands, Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam and Evan Williams, all have multiple flavored expressions. Canada’s Crown Royal is also in the act. And don’t forget Sazerac’s Fireball. All of them are flavored whiskey to you and me, but not to TTB.

So, while the sticklers will stickle, we know what is meant by flavored whiskey, which since Tennessee Fire was launched in 2011, has grown into a 10 million case business.

Chuck Cowdery

Charles K. Cowdery, a Kentucky Colonel and member of the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, is an internationally recognized whiskey writer specializing in American whiskey. He is the author of several acclaimed bourbon books, including "Bourbon, Strange: Surprising Stories of American Whiskey," and contributes regularly to Whisky Advocate Magazine. Chuck also holds the position of editor and publisher for The Bourbon Country Reader, the longest-running publication solely dedicated to American whiskey.

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