Jack Daniel's is a brand of sour mash Tennessee whiskey that is the highest sell ing American whiskey in the

world.[1][2] It is known for its square bottles and black label. It is produced in Lynchburg, Tennessee, by the Jack Daniel Distille ry, which has been owned by the Brown-Forman Corporation since 1956.[3] 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 consumption at sto res or restaurants within the county. Although the product generally meets the regulatory criteria for classification as a straight bourbon, the company disavows this classification and markets it s imply as Tennessee whiskey rather than as Tennessee bourbon

According to the Jack Daniel's website, founder Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel was born in September 1850, although seemingly no one knows the exact date because t he birth records were destroyed in a courthouse fire.[citation needed] If the 18 50 date is correct, he might hypothetically have become a licensed distiller at the age of 16, as the brand label says "Est. & Reg. in 1866".[6] Other records l ist his birth date as September 5, 1846,[6] and in the 2004 biography Blood & Wh iskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel, author Peter Krass maintains[7] that l and and deed records show that the distillery was actually not founded until 187 5 (the date also suggested by the Tennessee state library,[6] estimating that he was 29 when the distillery was founded). Jack was one of twelve children father ed by Calaway Daniel. Jack's mother, Lucinda Cook Daniel, died in 1847[6] (which would have made it difficult for her to give birth to him in 1850), after which his father remarried and had several more children. Jack Daniel's grandfather, Joseph "Job" Daniel emigrated from Wales as did his Scottish wife to the United States. He was of Welsh, Scottish, English, and Scots-Irish descent.[8] In 2012, a Welshman, Mark Evans, claimed to have discovered the original recipe,[9] in a book written by his great-great-grandmother in 1853, whose brother-in-law emigr ated to Tennessee. Jack died in 1911 from blood poisoning which started from an infection. The infe ction allegedly 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).[10] Jack Daniel never married and did not have any children. However, he took his fa vorite nephew, Lem Motlow, under his wing. Lem was very skilled with numbers, an d was soon doing all of the distillery's bookkeeping. In 1907, due to failing he alth, Jack Daniel gave the distillery to Motlow, who then bequeathed the distill ery to his children, Robert, Reagor, Dan, Conner, and Mary, upon his death in 19 47. Tennessee passed a state-wide prohibition law in 1910, preventing the legal dist illation of Jack Daniel's in the state, and as a result Lem Motlow began distill ing operations in St Louis, Missouri and Birmingham, Alabama, though none of the production from these locations was ever sold due to quality problems.[11] The introduction of prohibition in 1920 (until 1933) through the Eighteenth Amendmen t to the Constitution stopped production in St Louis; production in Alabama havi ng been stopped earlier by that state's prohibition laws. All production then ce ased. Even the Twenty-first Amendment enactment in 1933 repealing federal prohib ition did not allow production in Lynchburg to restart, as the Tennessee state p rohibition laws were still in effect. Motlow, as a Tennessee state senator, help ed 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 gif t pack of two bottles, one for the 75th anniversary of the end of prohibition an d a second commemorating the 70th anniversary of the reopening of the distillery .[12] The U.S. government banned the manufacture of whiskey during World War II and a little beyond, from 1942 to 1946. Motlow resumed production of Jack Daniel's onl

y in 1947 after good quality corn was again available.[11] When the company was later incorporated, it was incorporated as "Jack Daniel Dis tillery, Lem Motlow, Prop., Inc." This has allowed the company to continue to in clude Lem Motlow, who died in 1947, in its marketing, since mentioning him in th e advertising is technically just citing the full corporate name. Likewise, the advertisements continue to say that Lynchburg has only 361 people, though the 20 00 census reports 5,740. This is allowable because the entire label was trademar ked in the early 1960s when this figure was the actual population cited by the C ensus Bureau; changing the label would require applying for a new trademark or f orfeiting trademark protection. However, the census population includes all of M oore County, as the county and city governments are consolidated. Moore County, where the Jack Daniel's distillery is located, is one of the state's many dry co unties. Therefore, while it is legal to distill the product within the county, i t is illegal to purchase it there. However, a state law has provided one excepti on: a distillery may sell one commemorative product, regardless of county statut es.[13] 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 rota tion) at the distillery's White Rabbit Bottle Shop.