Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is the most popular American whiskey on the planet. There’s nary a corner of the world you can venture without finding a bottle of Jack on the shelf. Then there’s Jim Beam, dubbed the world’s most popular “bourbon” (Tennessee whiskey is technically bourbon, too — so bourbon aside, Beam is the third best-selling whiskey in the world). Beam is also available worldwide at a great price. And like Jack, people have long-term, even generational associations with the brand.
The duo’s dominance means that these two whiskeys get compared (and dissed) a lot. So I’m going to blind taste them and choose, once and for all, which one is better.
This might sound weird, but this was the hardest blind tasting I’ve ever done. For one, I wanted to take this very seriously and nose and taste these two entry-level expressions with the same zeal I use with the most ridiculously priced whiskeys on the market. Two, these two whiskeys are so close that picking one over the other was a trial. Since I knew pretty much instantly which was which, even blind, I went back and re-tasted them to try and find that chink in the armor or nuance that set one above the other. And … it just wasn’t there.
Next, I counted the nose and flavor notes to see if there was a numerical winner. They were tied there, too. To be clear, they were not the same on the nose, on the taste, or on the finish. But they each offered something that made them hard to rank above the other.
Finally, I threw out the tasting ritual and drank one of each. For clarification, when I taste whiskeys, I always spit. Tasting is putting whiskey on your tongue. Drinking is swallowing it. Since just tasting wasn’t enough, I drank one of each to find anything to set these apart.
Here’s what shook out in the end:
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Part 1: The Taste
Taste 1
Tasting Notes:
Immediately, you get a sourdough note that leads right into a vanilla extract that turns it into a sort of raw pancake batter. That morphs into a Cherry Coke on the nose with a soft oak that eventually fades into a light cedar note with an underlying mineral water vibe. Yes, that’s just the nose.
The palate is soft with a cherry wood vibe next to a hint of corn muffins (close to Jiffy) that turns into cherry cough syrup with a woody underbelly. Next, light caramel sweetness works the mid-palate towards a warm “spice” countered by dry, woody vanilla and a final hint of sourness tied to yeast that closes the circle, so to speak.
Taste 2
Tasting Notes:
There’s a medicinal cherry vibe on the nose that’s maybe a cherry root beer that leads towards a savory fruit that’s close to canned pumpkin puree. Wet pine kindling leads to a new leather note as vanilla wafers layered with milk chocolate round out the nose until this faint hint of fresh apple cider sneaks in late.
The palate starts off soft with a cherry bark that leads into homemade banana chips with a flake of salt and those vanilla wafers with milk chocolate from the nose. A dry firewood note arrives around the mid-palate as an almost sour vanilla cream softens things dramatically with a choco-spice counterpoint. The end warms with that spice as the fruit leans back towards the cherry root beer and apple cider. Again, closing that circle!
Part 2: The Ranking
2. Jim Beam — Taste 1
ABV: 40%
Average Price: $24 (1-liter bottle)
The Whiskey:
This bourbon has a low-rye mash bill of 75 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and 12 percent malted barley made with Beam’s own yeast strain and plenty of spring water from the ground below the distillery. That juice is aged for at least four years before the barrels are mingled and it’s cut down to 80 proof with more of that soft Kentucky limestone water.
Bottom Line:
This had a great cherry/vanilla vibe that felt like I made my own Cherry Vanilla Coke off one of those machines at the AMC — I could smell the popcorn popping in the background. That’s hardcore nostalgia from Beam right there.
Then there was that sour note. I think had it been a sour cherry instead of a raw batter or yeasty sour, it would have edged out Jack. That really was the only thing that drew this sip back. Well, maybe that and the mineral water note on the nose.
That being said, when I treated Jim Beam — regular f*cking Jim Beam — like a whiskey that costs ten times as much, it stood up. Maybe people slag this off because they’re drinking it too fast in shots or mixing it with sugary crap without taking the time to see what’s actually in there?
1. Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 — Taste 2
ABV: 40%
Average Price: $26
The Whiskey:
Nathan “Nearest” Green and Jack Daniel created this Tennessee whiskey right after the Civil War, thanks in part to Green utilizing the Lincoln County Process when making his whiskey. The super low-rye sour mash bill (80 percent corn, 12 percent malted barley, and eight percent rye) is made with iconic soft limestone water from a cave on the Jack property that goes miles deep into the earth. That whiskey is filtered, drop by drop, through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal before at least four years of maturation in new oak. The whiskey is then blended, proofed (with more of that cave water), and bottled.
Bottom Line:
This edges out Beam based on the fact that there was more of a build between the wood and multiple fruits, with that big cut with water to bring it down to 80 proof not feeling particularly noticeable.
Overall, this was very, very close in the flavor department when you look at what’s present on the nose and the taste. But, there was a little more refinement here and that can only be attributed to that slow-drip filtration through sugar maple charcoal. I feel like the fruit was more nuanced while the woodiness was a tad more succinct.
Lastly, the “sour mash” note that did come through, but it was attached to a vanilla cream mid-palate point that made a little more sense to the overall taste than a Beam’s sourdough pancake batter. But, I’ll admit… that’s just for me.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
I think you can see from the levels of the whiskey in those bottles what I reach for more often. That being said, I think I’ve been underestimating standard Jim Beam White Label. There’s a real nuance underneath that very macro bourbon.
In the end, I think you should find your own everyday, table whiskey. For me, that’s Jack Daniel’s. And, just maybe, you should give it a shot too. After all, it’s the world’s best-selling and most popular American whiskey for a reason. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for any whiskey journey.
