Take a global poll of dream jobs and I'm sure Jeff Arnett's would rank right up there. As the newly minted, seventh master distiller of Jack Daniel's whisky, he oversees one of the planet's most iconic and venerated consumer brands. And, yes, he gets paid to taste the stuff every day.
Yet it's hard even for Jack aficionados like me to get too jealous. Mr. Arnett deserves the job more than I do, clearly. He can document his devotion to the Tennessee whisky back to before he started with the company seven years ago as a quality-control engineer.
A native of Jackson, Tenn., Mr. Arnett, 41, had for years been a card-carrying member of the Tennessee Squire Association, the official Jack Daniel's fan club. In keeping with the independent club's rules, Mr. Arnett had to relinquish membership after joining the payroll of Brown-Forman, the Kentucky-based company that owns Jack Daniel's. "I was a big fan," he said while visiting Toronto last week on a three-day tour of LCBO stores in the area.
Free samples aside, another perk of his new job became apparent to Mr. Arnett recently as the economy turned sour.
Though Jack Daniel's is considered a premium brand, it appears to be benefiting as much as suffering from the recession as consumers trade down to blue-collar brands. While technically not a bourbon because of the unconventional charcoal-filtering step that gives the corn-dominated whisky its distinctive flavour and smoothness, it is part of a back-to-basics bourbon tide.
In the United States alone, bourbon sales were up by about 4 per cent over the holiday period and through January, well ahead of other spirits, according to Nielsen Co., which tracks retail sales. In Ontario, sales of Jack Daniel's in dollar terms were up 10.1 per cent during the past 11 months, according to the LCBO. That's higher even than the robust 8.1-per-cent gain for the whole U.S. whisky category in the same period. "Our fan base seems to be, like, from bikers to bankers," Mr. Arnett said.
Mr. Arnett reports that overall sales held steady over the past year. "That's respectable in the economy that we're faced with right now," he said in a Tennessee twang thicker than hand-sliced bacon.
The company's flagship Old No. 7 brand, with the famous black label and square bottle, has long been the world's bestselling whisky. Rival Johnnie Walker of Scotland can claim to be bigger, but only on the basis of its entire line of several whiskies rather than the single flagship Johnnie Walker Red.
Last year, Brown-Forman, whose other brands include Southern Comfort and Finlandia, shipped more than 10 million nine-litre cases of Jack Daniel's to 135 countries. Old No. 7 accounted for about 95 per cent, with the balance held by two more recent brand extensions, a softer, sweeter variant called Gentleman Jack, introduced in 1988, and an ultra-premium small-batch product called Single Barrel, created to compete with the likes of trendy bourbons Buffalo Trace and Knob Creek, both from Kentucky.
The U.S.-led economic downturn did mark a milestone in the company's history last year, though. For the first time, more Jack Daniel's was shipped outside the United States than within in it. Jack is now a bona fide global drink.
Foreign demand for emblems of the Western good life, particularly from Asia and Eastern Europe, over the past two decades has kept it booming.
"For the last 15 or 20 years, you could almost draw a pretty straight [sales increase]line," Mr. Arnett said. "We've grown at pretty much the 5- to 6-per-cent range year on year, which is just astronomical growth."
Few brands, if any, are grounded in a more distinctively American, down-home mythology. Magazine ads have for decades boasted of the spirit's origins in Lynchburg, Tenn., "Pop. 361." For the record, the town numbers 500 - officially more than 5,000, if you include the recently amalgamated, and famously dry, Moore County.
And the operation is considerably bigger than is suggested by the historic-landmark distillery building that draws more than 200,000 visitors a year. There are an astounding 1.7 million barrels aging in 77 warehouses tucked inconspicuously into the hillside nooks and crannies of the town. "You can only see a handful of 'em from the distillery tour," Mr. Arnett conceded. "A lot of 'em are over the ridges and back up in the hills."
As he recites such trivia, Mr. Arnett sounds more like the keen former Tennessee Squire than the brand's chief marketing mascot. It's a role, assumed last year, that seems to suit the mild-mannered, 6-foot-3 Mr. Arnett better than his more technically oriented predecessor, Jimmy Bedford, with whom I sipped a few shots 10 years ago. Mr. Arnett doesn't demur, for example, when I ask about one of my idols.
"When we found out Frank Sinatra was a huge fan, we made sure he stayed with it, that he always had it available to him and had somebody assigned to take care of him," he said of the singer whose fondness for the brand helped spark supply shortages for years. That "somebody" was Angelo Lucchese, the company's first salesman, who eventually became close friends with the Sinatra family.
Mr. Arnett also takes pride in recounting the Rat Pack leader's unusual funeral request. Inside Mr. Sinatra's coffin in 1998 were placed a roll of dimes, a pack of Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. "The dimes were for calling friends," Mr. Arnett said.
More recently, the whisky has been the unofficial mouthwash of a host of rockers, notably the guitarist Slash of Guns N' Roses, the bassist Lemmy of Motorhead, and the band Mötley Crüe. Readers of the latter's official group autobiography, The Dirt, will recognize the graphic allusion to the Jack Daniel's bottle on the cover. (A closer look also will reveal a reflection in the glass of a bikini-clad woman.)
Does Brown-Forman mind? Not if the images are flattering, Mr. Arnett says, and not unless they try promote irresponsible consumption.
Mr. Arnett, refreshingly not a purist when it comes to whisky-sipping, is fond of mixing Jack with splashes of apple juice and ginger ale in a highball glass with ice. "Outstanding," he says.
I respond by confessing my own Jack Daniel's cocktail preference: on ice with the juice of two lime wedges (reliably available even in the worst bars). "Complementary flavours," the master proclaims, noting that corn whisky is slightly sweet and loves tart citrus.
Mr. Arnett says that under his watch the company will be in no danger of getting into another Rat Pack supply crunch. The distillery's capacity is now 15 million cases a year. "We're selling closer to 10 [million] So, we're prepared for growth, growth that we're hoping will happen when the economy rebounds."
I just hope we don't see a lime shortage.
***
You don't know Jack
Jack Daniel's, technically a Tennessee whisky rather than a bourbon, is a blend of 80-per-cent corn (for sweetness), 12-per-cent malted barley (for a cereal-like flavour) and 8-per-cent rye (for spice) that spends at least four years in charred oak containers. But it's the postdistillation mellowing process, in which the still-clear spirit drips through more than three metres of packed charcoal nuggets, that gives Jack one of the most subtly distinctive flavour profiles of all spirits.
The step, which disqualifies the whisky as a bourbon, also adds to the production cost, as master distiller Jeff Arnett likes to note. The 72 vats each contain $6,000 (U.S.) worth of sugar-maple charcoal that must be replaced every six months, for an annual cost of $864,000 - just for charcoal. The "lighter fluid" used to ignite the sugar maple to make the charcoal is 140-proof Jack Daniel's.
Beppi Crosariol