Open your minds, mouths, stomachs, anus and urethra all you Honest Booze Reviews readers because shit is about to go down. A couple of weeks ago we all got together and decided that we needed to cook some food…cook some food and get drunk. WHAT CHU KNOW ABOUT BOOZE REVIEWS, SON?! BuffaloJern, the man named Justice, and DJ LvL got together with a couple of new friends to this gig in Poat and Mr. Hentai to drink some food and eat some booze along with me, bottle inverted 180 degrees and the opening no longer pouring booze into my mouth, William Henri Neve IV aka newly formed Tex Mexibro aka MC Will Power aka DJ Jonah Jameson (DAMN YOU SPIDERMAN!) aka William Henri Neve The Fourth (different person).
*Shown here with the old and new bottle designs
We here at Booze Reviews have a fondness for Epic Meal Time and love the work they have done with Jack Daniels and bacon and encourage you to watch all of their episodes after reading all of our reviews first. They have put Jack Daniels back in a place where it is cool to drink it again; where it becomes the choice of alcohol for people that are badass and care free. It used to be biker gangs that stood for JD and before that the collective group of the southern United States but it always has ebbs and flows as far as it being considered “good” from a public perception of it being tough and well known. Every now and then Jack Daniels just becomes “that famous whiskey” and it takes a group of men to come in and make it popular by drinking a lot of it and making a fun show out of it. This is a good thing.
We here at booze reviews love whiskey and want good whiskey to be popular. This is why we feel that Epic Meal Time is choosing the wrong bottle of Jack. Many of us thought JD Green label was the way to go and so we drank both because like a political debate we allow equal time for both sides to fuck us over in the future. So, we started with Black Label because you always start with what got you to the party and subsequently made you “Dragon” and wake up missing your clothes with a rather grotesque woMAN (and yes the Adams apple does make that second half of the word become capitalized like that) at that same party.
So in true Tex Mexibro fashion we decided to go out for Mexican food and while we waited we pounded a few shots of our BYOB Jack Daniels Black Label and after the meal cleansed out palates and had the Green Label. Who will win?! Which label is better? All we know is that this company just made money off of us and part of that will go directly to Epic Meal Time…which is a good thing. I’ve also decided to add my own thoughts to the metrics, because the review was undertaken by Mexi-Bro and I’m William Henri Neve the IV which is both the same and not the same person.
What they say: “A Mature Taste. We all know age isn’t the same thing as maturity. It’s true of people and it’s true of whiskey. Experience determines maturity. It’s what a whiskey experiences while inside the barrel and not simply how long it’s been there that gives it the rich color, character, and taste we call maturity. Mellowing our whiskey through 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal, crafting our own barrels and where that rests in the barrel house – each contributes to how our whiskey matures. Age by itself isn’t a reliable measure of a whiskey’s quality and character. Which is why our tasters tell us when the whiskey is ready. We judge its quality the same way you do – with a sip”
Taste: 5.79 – Sweet for a whiskey, not a bad taste at all. WHNIV: It is fairly decent. Delicious.
Aftertaste: 4.75 – Bleeds into the burn so the aftertaste really isn’t very prevalent. WHNIV: It is a little bit off. The aftertaste should have that same sour mash taste dripping down your throat and making you happier.
Burn/Smooth: 3.25 – This does burn like a subpar whiskey. WHNIV: I feel it burns like a whiskey whiskey…kind of like a vodka vodka burns like vodka and a beer beer tastes like beer.
Aroma: 5.83 – Nice sweet smell, Justice however did not approve. WHNIV: Meh…should be better.
Honesty: 8 – Bunch of awards, little bit too much wank about barrels and age not being maturity. Which is true Johnnie Walker Blue Label has 4yr scotch blended in, but you’d never guess that it just feels less like them stating it and more like they’re covering for something; however it commands the JD name, and is their signature product so honesty is huge. WHNIV: When you see this you think of bar fights and, in the same thought, about Jack Daniels who had like 7 wives over his life and a giant mustache but was a southern gentleman.
Mixability: 5.485
w/ Rocks: 5.67 – It smooths out here with less burn, but not very tasty.
Whiskey and Coke: 5.3 – It actually kind of disappears into the coke – which is good or bad depending on your preference.
WHNIV: I was too drunk to remember this as we did it after all of our other reviews and after drinking both jack daniels and we walked back to Lee’s place. I assume my drunk self gave it a fair score as we seem to be consistent with our sober selves on what we should grade things.
Value: 4.83 – It’s standard, the price is what you’d expect to pay – so no deals here. WHNIV: I expect to pay less. Should be around $20.
Google Shop Average: $25
Website: http://www.jackdaniels.com/
Reviewer Scores:
William Henri Neve the IV: 6
Justice: 5.5
BuffaloJern: 5.5
DJ_Lvl: 4.5
Mr. Hentai: 5.5
Poat 6.5
Want to compare this spirit against our archives? Visit our statistics page.
Metric Score: 37.94/70 |+| Metric Average: 5.42 |+| Reviewer Average: 5.58
New to Honest Booze Reviews, or just wondering how we score? See our FAQ/Review Policy.
Final Thoughts:
At the price JD Black Label is, it’s a bizarre miracle why no-one would pay the extra 5 bucks to get Gentlemen Jack or pay 3 dollars less and grab the comparable if not slightly better Green Label (Which we’ll review next week in fact.) With JD Black you realize that what you’re buying isn’t the bottle, or the golden water inside but a name and an icon. Ask yourself though? Wouldn’t your money be better spent on Johnnie Walker Red?
WHNIV: I feel your money is better well saved and then spent to make a bar up for under $100 like Buffalo gave you in one of our other reviews.
It has been written, so it must be. Science has proven it.