George Dickel, which is owned by Diageo, recently cleared a new label for George Dickel and for the first time called the product Bourbon instead of TN Whisky. Both Jack Daniels and George Dickel have always met the legal requirements to be called Bourbon although they elected to designate themselves as TN Whisk(e)y. Nothing about the Lincoln County Process prevents a whiskey from being bourbon.
Now what surprised me was that George Dickel used a Diageo address in New York in the Produced By statement on the back label.
But since this was now labeled as Bourbon and not TN Whiskey, this label failed to meet 27 CFR 5.36 (d). My readers likely know this code requires the actual state of distillation to be on the label on certain types of American whiskey if the Produced by or Bottled by statement is different than the actual state of distillation.
I contacted Diageo and the TTB about this clear label code violation. The TTB gave me their typical line; we will investigate it and take action as appropriate. Diageo did get back to me and after a week later they responded back that a new COLA label submission had been filed which now says distilled and produced at Cascade Hollow in Tennessee. I also checked on the old label with New York and it has now been surrendered.
The new label:
I would hope this puts an end to the false argument that Jack and George aren’t bourbons. But since many uneducated fools still think Bourbon can only be made in KY, I doubt it does. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to this release of 8-year Dickel Bourbon.