Monday, May 16, 2011

New Jack Daniel's Label Is Revealed.

Brown-Forman announced today that it has changed the label for Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Brand because, as the press release says (I'm paraphrasing), "Mr. Jack would have wanted us to."

Bottles with the new labels will begin shipping shortly and should be in stores by July.

Some of the changes are interesting. Lem Motlow is gone. So is the population of Lynchburg. The statement "bottled at the distillery" is gone, perhaps because the distillery is a few miles away from the bottling house.

"Est. and Reg. in 1866" is gone, perhaps because the Federal government has no record of any such registration.

Interestingly, though, all of the claims removed from the label are still made in the press release, so they're not backing away from them, just taking them off the label.

Simplification is good and with Jack Daniel's now selling about half of its volume outside the USA, maybe all that extra clutter just raised questions that are hard for their overseas reps to answer, such as how can a guy who's been dead for 64 years be your proprietor?

I talked recently with a reporter from a major national outlet who wondered it these changes will be controversial. Maybe a little, since Jack's ardent fans are very protective of the brand, but what this really does is give them a reason to buy and set aside as many of the current label bottles as possible.

4 comments:

snakeman said...

I like the look of the new label.
Not as cluttered as the old. To me the new label is more modern looking, and the items dropped really are out dated. The whiskey inside is still the same, and that is what it's all about. I keep a bottle of Black Label on hand for the people who think drinking whiskey needs ice. I do drink their SB expression, and the Sliver Select expression when my son pick's it up while traveling to and from China.
Wonder how many people will notice the difference?

Anonymous said...

I like the new bottle and label however I'd like it better if they brought juice back to 90 proof

Chuck Cowdery said...

I was so excited about the label changes that I didn't notice the bottle is different too.

Anonymous said...

I'm from Tenn, drank JD straight up at Christmas for ever. Thought I'd try the new product. Don't like the honey that I just drank, way too sweet. Didn't read the whole bottle till I got home and there is Liqueur on the label... "Liqueur" on a bottle of JD????? What's this world coming to? Pouring it down the drain now.