16.10.2020
Cam Dawson joins us to chat about Tennessee whiskey, charcoal-mellowing, brand evolution and shares a few reasons why whiskey is the heart and soul of his life!
Cam Dawson joins us to chat about Tennessee whiskey, charcoal-mellowing, brand evolution and shares a few reasons why whiskey is the heart and soul of his life!
Cam Dawson joins us to chat about Tennessee whiskey, charcoal-mellowing, brand evolution and shares a few reasons why whiskey is the heart and soul of his life!
As we continue our exploration of American whiskey in our 'Heart & Soul' Auction, we were very excited to dive behind the label of America's most emblematic and top-selling whiskey brand. We also got in touch with their UK Brand Ambassador, Cam Dawson, and here's what he had to say...
I’m Cam Dawson, UK Brand Ambassador for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. I was born and raised in Scotland before moving to the south of England in the mid 00’s where I became a cocktail bartender. I spent 10 years slinging drinks in a variety of venues on the south coast and working prestigious events in London before I was invited to share my love of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey to the drinks trade. I became the UK’s first Brand Ambassador for Jack Daniel’s whiskey in 2014.
Day to day, I’m the “Go-to” contact in the UK for any questions on the whiskey in the bottle and offer some expertise on the brand’s 154 year heritage too. I develop and host training programs for the drinks trade throughout the UK and help with drink/cocktail menu creation for their venues.
I also get to host some great events for people that aren’t working in the drinks industry; whiskey fans and connoisseurs that will come and learn about the history of Jack Daniel, his award winning whiskey and of course; how to drink it.
Jack Daniel’s is a ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ but I do love how this sparks friendly debate in whiskey circles around the world.
We have been proudly making our Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg since 1866 making us the oldest registered distillery in America and far older than the category of bourbon becoming the official whiskey of America (1964).
To be named a Tennessee Whiskey (which is recognised by the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA), it HAS to be made in the state of Tennessee. The governor of Tennessee also passed a new house bill in 2013 confirming that a Tennessee Whiskey must pass through charcoal prior to aging. The rules are a bit spread out from national to state but if you want to call it a Tennessee Whiskey, these are the rules you have to follow.
The way that I see it, if a Scottish whiskey can be split up into regions and categories (highlands and lowlands etc), why not American whiskey too? It’s a useful thing! It tells us exactly what's inside the bottle before we buy it or order it over the bar.
We have a team of two men; Darryn and Tracey who have been our in house fire starters for many years now. They will take hard sugar maple wood and burn it down for about 2-3 hours. As the whiskey is to be coming into contact with the charcoal, they don’t want to taint the flavour in any way so they use ‘Whiskey For Destruction’ which is unaged, Jack Daniel’s straight off the still at 70% (140 Proof) to start these ‘rick fires’. After it’s cooled, it is ground down to small pea sized nuggets then hand pack it into our mellowing vats. There is no law to say how much charcoal is needed for the Lincoln County Process, but in his day, Jack used 10ft and that’s exactly what we do today. The new whiskey falls onto the beds of charcoal drop by drop (like a leaky tap), it takes around a week for one drop to reach the bottom and when it comes out, the flavour has been mellowed. The charcoal clings onto the fatty corn acids and volatile alcohols that all new-make whiskey has in it. In Tennessee, we traditionally remove this with the sugar maple charcoal to offer a smoother sippin’ whiskey.
It’s worth saying that we are very conscious of what we take from nature so we work with the University of Tennessee on a tree planting scheme to ensure we give back more than we take.
Jack Daniel’s is proudly an American whiskey as well as a Tennessee Whiskey. We follow every rule to make a Bourbon but go through additional regulations to be classified as a Tennessee Whiskey.
Something that I’m truly proud of is the consistency of Jack Daniel’s. From Lynchburg to London, every single drop of the whiskey comes from our distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. We use the same water source as Jack and his master distiller, Nearest Green back in the 1860’s. It’s an historic brand.
There is no denying that we’re one of the major players in the whiskey game in our 154th year but this allows us to make our whiskey to the highest standard possible. We are the only whiskey company in America to make our own barrels. The barrel gives over half of the flavour to the finished whiskey so we want to ensure the quality is the best it can possibly be.
I like to say that we make our whiskey everyday how Jack and Nearest would have made it on the very best of days and this is down to modern distilling techniques and standards. Jack’s motto was “Every day we make it, we’ll make it the best we can” so like him, we start with the best quality grain; 80% Yellow corn and create a mash bill with 12% malted barley and 7% Rye, just like it was in 1866. We ferment for one week with our proprietary yeast strain which is cultivated in Lynchburg by our in house microbiologist until it reaches 10% abv or 20 Proof. We distil with copper continuous stills until it reaches 70% abv and then it goes to the mellowing room.
We actually have two cooperages now. the Brown-Forman cooperage in Louisville where our parent company is based and also one in Trinity, Alabama. We predominantly use barrels from the Alabama cooperage which caters just for Jack as the Louisville site also produces barrels for Woodford Reserve and Old Forester Bourbons as well as our tequilas. After the barrels arrive at the distillery, they are filled with our mellowed new-make before going for a long sleep in one of our 90 barrel houses.
Jack Daniel himself started the distillery back in 1866 and gained a lot of popularity in America before taking international recognition at the 1904 World’s Fair when he won a gold medal for the ‘finest whiskey in the world’. It wasn’t until 1988 that the distillery started to branch out and innovate with the (nearly as old as me) Gentleman Jack which was the world's first double mellowed whiskey. In the 90’s we introduced Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel which has most recently won a coveted double gold at the San Francisco spirits and gold at the bartender spirits awards. Most recently we have ventured into making rye, something that has never been done at the Jack Daniel distillery before as well as adding to our whiskey liqueur offerings with Honey, Fire and Apple. These are great to introduce the whiskey flavour profile to people that might find traditional whiskey daunting and are so much fun to mix with..
Throw in a touch of live music and give me my Jack Daniel’s t-shirt and I’ll be in my element!
@CamDawsonJD