As whiskey continues to boom and, with it, apocalyptic predications of a crippling shortage, Jack Daniel’s seems to be faring just fine. Bloomberg reports that Brown-Forman, the company that owns Jack Daniel’s, saw a global increase in sales of 6 percent over the last 12 months ending on April 30th. Jack Daniel’s rose 8 percent, while Tennessee Honey, the company’s honey-flavored whiskey, clocked a 36 percent rise in sales after doubling its sales the previous year. The real whiskey apocalypse we should be worried about may not be a shortage, but rather a glut of flavored whiskeys, which the company expects to be “the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. whiskey market for the foreseeable future.”
In contrast to vodka’s spring break vibe, Brown-Forman is looking to frame flavored whiskey as a more up-market product. According to company’s CFO, Jane Morreau, “Flavor is moving toward a more premium positioning to break its image of young college party crowd and offer a more sophisticated aura.” So what exactly does “sophisticated aura” look like in flavored spirits land? A hot cinnamon-flavored whiskey called Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire, that’s what. The flavor boom is coming for you. [Bloomberg] [Image: Flickr/Steven Depolo]