Jack Daniel's Old No.7

 
Today, I would like to address one of the great questions of our time.

Why Old No.7?

Here's the great man himself.

It seems Mr.Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel  had a fine temper - probably why nobody was brave enough to ask him the origin of the name of his most famous creation. From Wikipedia.

Daniel died from blood poisoning at Lynchburg in 1911. The infection allegedly set up originally in a toe, which Daniel injured in kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open early one morning at work — he had always had trouble remembering the combination and his last words were "One last drink, please". This incident was the subject of a marketing poster used on the London Underground in January 2006, with the line "Moral: Never go to work early." A common joke that is told during the tour of the distillery is that all Jack had to do to cure his infection was to dip his toe in a glass of his own whiskey to clean it.

 A quick internet search produces these possible explanations for the name Old No.7.

"While a college student in Tennessee, not far from the Jack Daniels distillery, the story I heard was that in Mr. Daniels' first distiller's competition he was assigned number 7 as an entrant. May or may not be true, but the locals all believed it."

"A shipment marked No. 7 was lost. The first part of it sold so quickly that the sellers requested more of the No. 7. When JD found the lost portion of the shipment, they stamped it Old No. 7 to make sure the customers knew it was a part of the original number 7 shipment and not a new brew."

"They quote the legend claiming that Jack Daniels and his six friends invented the No7 whiskey; therefore, No. 7 stands as a tribute to his friends."

"Some say that Jack Daniel had 7 girlfriends, or that the way he wrote his “J” looked like a 7. Some say he chose the number 7 simply because it’s lucky.
One story goes that the recipe for Jack Daniel’s was Mr. Jack’s 7th recipe or 7th trial batch.
Another story says that it was the railroad shipping number on a barrel. We’ll never know for sure – Mr. Jack took that secret to the grave."

It's all put together very nicely in this commercial. Click here.

Well, I suppose there are greater mysteries to be pondered ....