Author: Jack Daniel's legend lacks proof

Some of the stories about the whiskey and its founder just aren't true.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Jack Daniel's whiskey is liquor built on a legend: an Old No. 7 label, a recipe crafted at the nation's oldest distillery and a medal signifying it as the best whiskey in the world.
But the author of a Jack Daniel biography contends the company that runs the famed distillery has allowed that legend to grow so much that marketing spin has overtaken the facts, and that some of the most cherished notions about the whiskey and its founder are simply not true.
"It wouldn't be such a big deal if they didn't pin so much of their marketing on these few items," said author Peter Krass. "But they really do."
Facts in dispute
Krass makes his case in "Blood & amp; Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel," and it has thrown him into a barroom brawl of words with spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp.
Both sides agree that Daniel was a true American success story who learned to make whiskey as a boy and struck out on his own with audacious marketing tactics that included shipping a keg to Queen Victoria.
But Krass said Daniel's was not the first registered distillery in the country and never won a gold medal for world's best whiskey.
On the Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 label, the whiskey is touted as being established and registered in 1866. Krass said land and deed records show Daniel didn't go into business until 1875.
Krass said it's also impossible that Jack's was the first registered distillery because many Northern distilleries were registered long before to comply with revenue laws.
World's best?
Touting a document he said is from the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Krass said Old No. 7 won a gold medal for best Tennessee whiskey, not best whiskey in the world. Seven others won medals for "world's best" American whiskey.
Finally, Krass takes issue with the distillery's claim that the origins of the Old No. 7 label are a mystery. The author said it was the number government regulators first used to identify the whiskey, later adopted by Daniel as the official label once customers became accustomed to seeing it on tax stamps.
Louisville, Ky.-based Brown-Forman counters that it has put together as complete a picture as possible, given the fact that much of the story of Daniel and his whiskey has been passed down from generation to generation. And the company points out that records are inconclusive due to the upheaval of the Civil War, Reconstruction, courthouse fires and Prohibition during the distillery's earlier years.
Records lacking
"Because of inadequate record-keeping, there is no way to prove the points on the life of Jack -- there is no way to prove even when he was born," Brown-Forman spokesman Phil Lynch said.
Mark Waymack, a professor at Loyola University Chicago and an author of a book on American whiskeys, suspects Krass is probably right.
"It's not an outright falsehood, but it is not necessarily what it's purported to be," he said. "A lot of the marketing in the whiskey industry is like that."
Krass said the dispute is hardly trivial "because through this misrepresentation Brown-Forman continues to build their Jack Daniel's brand to the possible detriment of their competitors."
Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 whiskey, also known as Black Label, is closing in on Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch whisky as the world's best-selling brand.
But Waymack said Jack Daniel's success was only partly due to marketing. Its rise to the top in the '60s and '70s was also due to charcoal filtering, which gives the whiskey a smoother taste.
No changes planned
Krass said he thought his research would compel the company to adjust its marketing literature and lore told in tours at the distillery in Lynchburg, one of Tennessee's top tourist attractions. But he said company executives have twice told him they won't be making any such changes.
"They'd just rather ignore it at this point," he said. "I think that they've got this huge legion of fans that they are hoodwinking."
Krass said the tales about Daniel started to gather steam when nephew Lem Motlow struggled to rebuild the business after Prohibition. And, he said, they really got out of hand in the 1960s after Brown-Forman bought the company and put its marketing might behind the Jack Daniel image.
Lynch said he liked the book and thinks it adds to the mystery surrounding Daniel's life, but there just isn't enough proof to change a story going back generations.
For instance, Lynch said, the distillery owns an old photo of Daniel's original office with a sign stating an 1866 inception -- perhaps the date Jack's mentor started brewing the whiskey. And in the early 1940s, the U.S. Patent office signed off on the highest award for the world's best whiskey phrase, according to the company. Even the World's Fair documents aren't thorough, he said.
"The bottom line is there is no ironclad documentation around many of the points," Lynch said.
Still popular
Krass, who lives in Hanover, N.H., and has spent a great deal of time with Jack Daniel's aficionados, doesn't think the company would lose many customers if it adjusted its literature to reflect his research -- pointing to continuing popularity even after the flagship brand reduced its alcohol content from 86 to 80 proof.
'They are drinking Jack Daniel's like it's a cult almost. It's a real culture," he said.
Krass said "probably about half" of the lore behind Jack Daniel is true.
"It's still an amazing story," Krass said, noting the distillery is one of the longest-running no matter which date is used for its inception. "He came out of the Civil War with $9 to become the wealthiest man in the area."
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