![]() With that idea in mind, Arnett set out to make a whiskey in the style of vintage Jack Daniel’s. When Sinatra started drinking Jack Daniel’s in 1947 - legend has it thanks to a tip from comedian Jackie Gleason - he was probably sipping a bigger and beefier iteration of the company’s classic Old No. In the 1950s, Arnett explains, whiskeys were generally darker and oakier with more intense, woody finishes. Sinatra Select debuted in 2013, and this year, Arnett has followed it with Sinatra Century, a limited release to celebrate the singer’s 100th birthday on December 12. “If Frank Sinatra was in town, you made sure a case of Jack was in his dressing room.”įifteen years after the Rat Pack captain died in 1998 (and was buried with his beloved black label), Jack Daniel’s did one better: It created a special whiskey dedicated to the legendary entertainer. ![]() Salesman Danny Campo, who worked for Jack Daniel’s for 29 years, remembers getting calls from Lucchesi, asking him to deliver a case to this club or that one. Angelo Lucchesi, the brand’s first salesman, was charged with keeping the singer stocked with his favorite sauce, which was in allocation at the time. In exchange, Jack Daniel’s made sure his glass was never empty. “ literally took Jack Daniel’s from being a small, regional brand to being a household name - made us a pop-culture icon in a way,” says Arnett. Without a contract or paycheck or any official partnership, Ol’ Blue Eyes had a measurable impact on his whiskey of choice simply by being the coolest guy in any room and telling his fans what he liked to drink. While the title didn’t exist as we now know it, Sinatra was, in a manner of thinking, Jack Daniel’s first brand ambassador. As Jack Daniel’s Master Distiller Jeff Arnett recounts, 1955 was the year that Sinatra brought a rocks glass onstage with him and uttered this magical line: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Daniel’s, and it’s the nectar of the gods.” That friend was Frank Sinatra, a dedicated whiskey drinker who took his Jack on three rocks with two fingers and just a splash of water. What changed? The company received an endorsement from one very powerful friend. By the end of 1956, however, that figure had doubled, and a shortage was taking root that would delay the export of Jack Daniel’s for almost two decades. ![]() Though the distillery was nearly 100 years old, the Lynchburg company was still a small, regional brand, moving roughly 150,000 cases annually of its black-labeled Tennessee whiskey. In 1955, Jack Daniel’s wasn’t the liquor powerhouse we think of today, ubiquitous on bar shelves, the best-selling whiskey in the world.
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