jack daniel s whiskey . for people named jack daniels see jack daniels disambiguation . jack daniel distillery lem motlow prop inc. type subsidiary of brown forman industry manufacturing and distillation of liquors founded lynchburg tennessee 1875 1 2 founder jack daniel headquarters lynchburg tennessee us key people jack daniel founder lem motlow proprietor 1911 47 jeff arnett 7th master distiller products distilled and blended liquors production output 11 million cases 2013 3 net income 121 700 000 number of employees 368 parent brown forman corporation website www.jackdaniels.com jack daniel distillery u.s. national register of historic places location tn 55 lynchburg tennessee nrhp reference 72001248 added to nrhp september 14 1972 jack daniel s is a brand of tennessee whiskey and the top selling american whiskey in the world . 4 5 it is produced in lynchburg tennessee by the jack daniel distillery which has been owned by the brown forman corporation since 1956 . 6 despite being the location of a major operational distillery jack daniel s home county of moore is a dry county so the product is not available for purchase at stores or restaurants within the county . 7 the product meets the regulatory criteria for classification as a straight bourbon though the company disavows this classification and markets it simply as tennessee whiskey rather than as tennessee bourbon . 8 9 as defined in the north american free trade agreement tennessee whiskey is classified as a straight bourbon authorized to be produced in the state of tennessee . 10 packaged in distinctive square bottles a total of 11 million cases of the flagship black label product were sold in the company s fiscal year ended april 30 2013 . contents 1 early history 2 recent history 2.1 lowering to 80 proof 2.2 sales and brand value status 2.3 sponsorships 2.4 master distillers 2.5 tennessee squires 3 production process 4 legal status 5 labels 6 special bottlings 6.1 1970s and 1980s 6.2 1990s 6.3 2000s 6.4 2010s 6.5 series bottling 7 distillery 8 cocktails 9 gallery 10 cultural references 11 see also 12 references 13 further reading 14 external links early history edit the jack daniel s brand s official website suggests that its founder jasper newton jack daniel was born in 1850 and his tombstone bears that date 1 but says his exact birth date is unknown . 11 the company website says it is customary to celebrate his birthday in september . 11 the tennessee state library website said in 2013 that records list his birth date as september 5 1846 and that the 1850 birth date seems impossible since his mother died in 1847 . 1 in the 2004 biography blood & whiskey the life and times of jack daniel author peter krass said his investigation showed that daniel was born in january 1849 based on jack s sister s diary census records and the date of death of jack s mother . 12 jack was one of 13 children fathered by calaway daniel and was the youngest of his mother s 10 children . 12 after daniel s mother lucinda cook daniel died his father remarried and had several more children . jack daniel s grandfather joseph job daniel emigrated from wales along with his scottish wife elizabeth calaway to the united states . 13 he was of welsh scottish english and scots irish descent . 14 daniel s father died in the civil war and he despised his step mother and as a result he ran away from home and was essentially orphaned at a young age . 2 12 statue of jack daniel in front of the subterranean fresh water spring from whence he once drew the water for producing his whiskey jack daniel s distillery lynchburg tennessee daniel was taken in by a local lay preacher and moonshine distiller named dan call and began learning the distilling trade as a teenager from call and call s master distiller nearis sometimes spelled nearest green an enslaved african american man who continued to work with call after emancipation . 2 in 1875 on receiving an inheritance from his father s estate following a long dispute with his siblings daniel founded a legally registered distilling business with call . he took over the distillery shortly afterward when call quit for religious reasons . 2 12 the brand label on the product says est. & reg . in 1866 but his biographer has cited official registration documents to assert that the business was not established until 1875 . 1 2 after taking over the distillery in 1884 daniel purchased the hollow and land where the distillery is now located . 2 13 by the 1880s jack daniel s was one of 15 distilleries operating in moore county and the second most productive behind tom eaton s distillery . 15 he began using square shaped bottles in 1897 with the square shape of the bottle intended to convey a sense of fairness and integrity . 2 12 according to daniel s biographer the origin of the old no. 7 brand name was the number assigned to daniel s distillery for government registration . 2 12 he was forced to change the registration number when the federal government redrew the district and he became number 16 in district 5 instead of no. 7 in district 4 . however he continued to use his original number as a brand name since his brand reputation already had been established . 2 12 jack daniel s experienced a surge in popularity after the whiskey received the gold medal for the finest whiskey at the 1904 st. louis world s fair although his local reputation was suffering as the temperance movement was gaining strength . 2 12 13 jack daniel never married and did not have any children . however he took his nephews under his wing one of whom was lemuel lem motlow 1869 1947 . 2 12 lem a son of daniel s sister finetta 13 was skilled with numbers and was soon doing all of the distillery s bookkeeping . in 1907 due to failing health jack daniel gave the distillery to two of his nephews . 2 12 motlow soon bought out the other nephew and went on to operate the distillery for about 40 years . ad for old no. 7 from a may 1908 issue of the nashville globe tennessee passed a statewide prohibition law in 1910 effectively barring the legal distillation of jack daniel s within the state . motlow challenged the law in a test case that eventually worked its way to the tennessee supreme court . the court upheld the law as constitutional however . 16 17 daniel died in 1911 from blood poisoning . an oft told tale is that the infection began in one of his toes which daniel injured one early morning at work by kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open he was said to always have had trouble remembering the combination . 18 however daniel s modern biographer has asserted that the story is not true . 2 12 because of the prohibition in tennessee the company began distilling operations in st louis missouri and birmingham alabama though none of the production from these locations was ever sold due to quality problems . 19 the alabama operation was halted following a similar statewide prohibition law in that state and the st. louis operation was halted by the onset of nationwide prohibition following passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1920 . while the passage of the twenty first amendment in 1933 repealed prohibition at the federal level state prohibition laws including tennessee s remained in effect thus preventing the lynchburg distillery from reopening . motlow who had become a tennessee state senator led efforts to repeal these laws allowing production to restart in 1938 . the five year gap between national repeal and tennessee repeal was commemorated in 2008 with a gift pack of two bottles one for the 75th anniversary of the end of prohibition and a second commemorating the 70th anniversary of the reopening of the distillery . 20 the replica home of lem motlow proprietor of jack daniel s from 1911 to 1947 ; the original home was demolished in 2005 and rebuilt to the likeness of lem motlow s house at jack daniel s distillery in lynchburg 21 the jack daniel s distillery ceased operations from 1942 to 1946 when the u.s. government banned the manufacture of whiskey due to world war ii . motlow resumed production of jack daniel s in 1947 after good quality corn was again available . 19 motlow died the same year . he bequeathed the distillery to his children robert reagor dan conner and mary upon his death . 22 the company was later incorporated as jack daniel distillery lem motlow prop . inc. this has allowed the company to continue to include lem motlow who died in 1947 in its marketing since mentioning him in the advertising is technically just citing the full corporate name . likewise the advertisements continue to use lynchburg s 1960s era population figure of 361 though the city has since formed a consolidated city county government with moore county and its official population had thus grown to over 6 000 by the 2010 census . the company was sold to the brown forman corporation in 1956 . 6 the jack daniel s distillery was listed on the national register of historic places in 1972 . in 2012 a welshman mark evans claimed to have discovered the original recipe for daniel s whiskey 23 in a book written in 1853 by his great great grandmother whose brother in law emigrated to tennessee . moore county where the jack daniel s distillery is located is one of the state s many dry counties . therefore while it is legal to distill the product within the county it is illegal to purchase it there . however a state law has provided one exception a distillery may sell one commemorative product regardless of county statutes . 24 jack daniel s now sells gentleman jack jack daniel s single barrel the original no. 7 blend in a commemorative bottle and a seasonal blend on rotation at the distillery s white rabbit bottle shop . recent history edit lowering to 80 proof edit until 1987 jack daniel s black label was historically produced at 90 u.s. proof 45 % alcohol by volume . 25 the lower end green label product was 80 proof . however starting in 1987 the other label variations also were reduced in proof . this began with black label being initially reduced to 86 proof . both the black and green label expressions are made from the same ingredients ; the difference is determined by professional tasters who decide which of the batches would be sold under the premium black label with the rest being sold as standard green label . a further dilution began in 2002 when all generally available jack daniel s products were reduced to 80 proof including the black label which had been 86 proof since 1987 and was 90 proof before that thus further lowering production costs and excise taxes . 26 27 this reduction in alcohol content which was done without any announcement publicity or change of logo or packaging 27 was noticed and condemned by modern drunkard magazine and the magazine formed a petition drive for drinkers who disagreed with the change . 26 the company countered that they believed consumers preferred lower proof products and said that the change had not hurt the sales of the brand . 26 27 the petition effort garnered some publicity and collected more than 13 000 signatures but the company held firm with its decision . 26 a few years later advertising age said in 2005 that virtually no one noticed the change and confirmed that sales of the brand had actually increased