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Jack Daniel's

distiller of Tennessee whiskey

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ371068 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jack Daniel's is a brand of Tennessee whiskey produced at Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, which has been owned by Brown-Forman since 1956.

Packaged in square bottles, Jack Daniel's "Black Label" Tennessee whiskey sold 12.9 million nine-liter cases in 2017. Other brand variations, such as Tennessee Honey, Tennessee Apple, Gentleman Jack, Tennessee Fire, and ready to drink (RTD) products brought the total to more than 16.1 million equivalent adjusted cases for the entire Jack Daniel's family of brands.

Early life of Jasper Daniel

The Jack Daniel's brand's official website suggests that its founder, Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel, was born in 1850 (his tombstone bears that date), but says his exact birth date is unknown. The company website says it is customary to celebrate his birthday in September. According to the Tennessee state library website in 2013, records list his birth date as September 5, 1846. It maintains that the 1850 birth date would be impossible given his mother's death was in 1847. However, 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, which was apparently, according to Krass's sources, not in 1847.

Jack was the youngest of 10 children born to his mother, Lucinda (Cook) Daniel, and father Calaway Daniel. After Lucinda's death, his father remarried and had three more children.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jack Daniel's” as distiller of Tennessee whiskey. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 2017, 1850, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1866-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Jack, Daniel's and distiller can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as distiller of Tennessee whiskey. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q371068. VIAF identifies the subject as 158421457. The Library of Congress control number is n93009303. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2017, 1850 and 2013.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jack Daniel's” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.