The Specific Reason Jack Daniel's Whiskey Is Packaged In Square Bottles

Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey has been produced for over 150 years and its fame is known worldwide. Spirits don't get much more familiar than this Tennessee whiskey, a true household name. But there's still plenty of fascinating information about this iconic brand to uncover. Tasting Table interviewed the distillery's own historian Nelson Eddy to dig into Jack Daniel's facts you likely didn't know, even if you're a big fan. One of the most interesting of those facts is why this whiskey comes in square bottles.

As if the brand wasn't recognizable enough, its packaging sets it apart from other whiskeys on any shelf. Why that square bottle — is there some deeply complex reason for it, do the angles play into capturing certain aromas? The answer is far simpler than that: Jack Daniel himself identified with the unique shape. When the distillery first started bottling its whiskey, a bottle salesman kept trying to find just the right bottle for Daniel. The perfectionist founder remained unimpressed by every option until the salesman decided to show him a last-resort bottle he was sure would be too strange because it was square instead of round. But that was just the ticket for Daniel, who remarked, "A square bottle for a square shooter like me." To him, the bottle represented the honesty of the pure, real-deal whiskey inside and the approach of the entire distillery.

This decision Daniel made to choose an unconventional bottle would only further boost brand awareness. Whichever one of the many different Jack Daniel's whiskey products you love, it's in that square bottle. Whether it was good luck or exceptional foresight, this is especially impressive when you consider this pick was made early into whiskey being bottled at all. 

From its invention centuries ago until the mid to late 1800s, whiskey distillers often sold their spirit in barrels for bars and restaurants to serve or stores to bottle themselves. But this meant that at any stage of this transaction, the whiskey could be altered. An unscrupulous shop owner could water it down or employ potentially dangerous additives to make more money off each barrel they purchased. Eventually, thanks to the advocating of George Brown in the 1870s to regulate whiskey production (especially for doctors who prescribed it medicinally), the government began to monitor consistency and quality. They passed the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, establishing quality whiskey in the U.S. as the government would endorse the purity of whiskeys distillers sealed in bottles themselves. According to Nelson Eddy, Jack Daniel's nephew Lem Motlow urged his uncle to bottle his whiskey to guarantee its quality. So, those square bottles were chosen to assure imbibers they were getting true whiskey, and because of their unique shape, they specifically broadcast that "square shooter" ethos of Jack Daniel.