Jack Daniel's didn't use to be a particularly common brand over here in China. The locals have been entirely seduced by canny marketing from Chivas Regal (a whisky I rarely see and have never drunk in the UK) and, to a lesser extent, Johnny Walker. And Jack, though quite reasonably priced compared with the tax-inflated price-tags we're used to overseas, has always been just a bit more expensive here than most other bourbons. If there's no mass market for it, then it's not worth faking. And, with its distinctive, complex charcoal flavour, it's pretty nigh impossible to fake it at all convincingly (although Chinese fakers - nor, sadly, most of the consumers here - are seldom that concerned with verisimilitude).
Alas, fake booze has been becoming more and more unavoidable over the past couple of years. Many brands that were previously reliable are now getting the coarse-alcohol-and-caramel treatment. Many bars that used to take some trouble to vet their suppliers now seem to have given up this unequal struggle (including, I'm sorry to say, my dear Pool Bar).
However, I don't think I've ever been fobbed off with fake JD before. Not, at least, with JD that was so obviously fake. And - oh, woe, woe, woe - it would have to happen in the Pool Bar.
I knew it was going to be bad even before we opened the bottle..... but I thought I'd try it anyway, out of a spirit of scientific curiosity.
How did I know? Well, I suppose it is just possible that the famous Lynchburg distillery has started producing some special labels (I really should take my camera along next time to get some photographic evidence of this, lest any of my readers should doubt me) for its China exports, but..... I think that's very, very, very unlikely.
The top of the label on this bottle was overprinted with the marvellous Chinglish slogan:
"Kind remind. Drink rationally."It's almost worth enduring the methanol poisoning for moments of delight like that.
8 comments:
Jack Daniels is NOT "just a bit more expensive than other bourbons" anywhere in the world, because Jack Daniels is NOT a bourbon.
It does not come from Kentucky. It is a Tennessee sipping whiskey. I would have thought someone who had been to the distillery might have been aware of this.
Yeah, I've never really cared much about those finicky American distinctions. It's not a 'rye' either, so what the fuck is it? Are they really trying to establish "Tennesse sippin' whiskey" for it as a genre of one? Go, advertising boys, go!
It's not a malt, therefore it's a whiskey. It's not a Scotch whisky, therefore it's misspelled. All else is redundant.
I do like it, though.
And I weep bitter tears when they make such bad knock-offs of it.
It is like calling a bottle of Cava champagne. It's not about finicky distinctions, it is just simply inaccurate. Call it a sour mash whiskey it you want, but it ain't freaking bourbon.
I don't see how this is in any way more acceptable than calling Bushmills "scotch."
I would have thought that, in the ranks of crimes against pedantry, it would be no worse than calling Bushmills a whisky.
If you're going to get all sniffy about it, you might at least explain yourself.
Though Jack is not usually styled a 'bourbon' in its own labelling, the common definition of 'bourbon' - and one that I gather is now enshrined in US law - is basically any American whiskey made from corn rather than rye, and of a certain strength. It is not restricted to whiskeys made in Kentucky, nor does it exclude the use of a sour mash process. If JD ain't a bourbon, please explain why.
The difference is the filtering. Bourbon is not charcoal filtered.
I know it doesn't exclude sour mash. All bourbons are, I think, sour mash.
And some "other" bourbons are charcoal-filtered too.
On what basis do you suggest that charcoal-filtering renders something that is otherwise a bourbon not a bourbon?
Notice - we've got a separate post for this now.
And I'm about to do the legal-scholarly footnote one on the only argument that has impressed me at all (and that's not much).
I have a (minor) correction to offer. I was in that bar again last night (once again sans camera, alas) and noticed that the advisory slogan was in fact: Rational drinking.
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