Jack Daniel's Trivia
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89 free Jack Daniel's trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Jack Daniel's is the best-selling whiskey on Earth, and its story is stranger than the marketing suggests. This Jack Daniels trivia quiz covers the founder Jasper Newton Daniel, the enslaved master distiller Nearest Green who taught him, the nephew who ran the business through Prohibition and a murder trial, the origin of the Old No. 7 name and the square bottle, and why you cannot legally buy a bottle in the county where it is made. There are questions on the production side too: the sugar-maple charcoal of the Lincoln County Process, the mash bill, the 2013 Tennessee whiskey law, the quiet drop to 80 proof, and the labels from Gentleman Jack to Sinatra Select. Pop culture gets its round with Frank Sinatra's burial, Lemmy's daily bottle, McLaren's Formula 1 livery and the Supreme Court's Bad Spaniels dog-toy case. It suits a bar quiz, a whiskey tasting, or a Tennessee road trip. Every answer was verified against the encyclopedia entries on the brand, its people and its hometown, and each question links to its source.
30 of 89 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jack Daniel's adverts long quoted Lynchburg's 1960s population as what figure?
361
The label and adverts read 'Lynchburg (Pop. 361), Tennessee', a 1960s census figure the brand kept long after the consolidated city-county had grown past 6,000 people.
Q 02Which company has owned Jack Daniel's since 1956?
Brown-Forman
Brown-Forman of Louisville, Kentucky bought the distillery in 1956 and also owns Old Forester, Woodford Reserve and Herradura tequila.
Q 03What was Jack Daniel's real first name?
Jasper
Jasper Newton Daniel was the youngest of ten children; his birth date is disputed between 1846, 1849 and 1850.
Q 04Who taught the young Jack Daniel to distil, and later became the distillery's first master distiller?
Nearest Green
Nearest Green was enslaved when he taught Daniel on Dan Call's farm; after emancipation he became the distillery's first master distiller, the first African-American master distiller on record.
Q 05Dan Call, who took in the teenage Jack Daniel and owned the still he learned on, was also what?
A lay preacher
Dan Call was a lay preacher as well as a farmer and distiller; pressure from his congregation made him quit the whiskey business, leaving Daniel to take it over.
Q 06The Jack Daniel's label says the distillery was established and registered in which year?
1866
The label reads 'Est. & Reg. in 1866', but biographer Peter Krass argues the registration papers show the business actually dates from 1875.
Q 07According to Jack Daniel's biographer, where did the "Old No. 7" name come from?
The distillery's government registration number
Biographer Peter Krass traces the name to the distillery's government registration number, 7; when the federal district was redrawn it became No. 16, but Daniel kept the familiar 'Old No. 7'.
Q 08In which year did Jack Daniel's introduce Gentleman Jack?
1988
Gentleman Jack debuted in 1988 as a premium sibling to Old No. 7 and is bottled at 40% ABV.
Q 09Jack Daniel's popularity surged after winning a gold medal for the finest whiskey at which 1904 event?
The St. Louis World's Fair
Old No. 7 won the gold medal for the world's finest whiskey at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, even as Tennessee's temperance movement gathered strength.
Q 10According to the oft-told tale, how did Jack Daniel get the injury that supposedly led to his death?
Kicking his safe in anger
The tale says Daniel hurt his toe by kicking his safe in anger after forgetting the combination; biographer Peter Krass doubts the story, and the recorded cause of death was blood poisoning.
Q 11In what year did Jack Daniel die?
1911
Jack Daniel died of blood poisoning in Lynchburg in October 1911, having handed the distillery over to family in 1907.
Q 12To whom did Jack Daniel give the distillery in 1907?
His nephews
Daniel gave the distillery to his nephews in 1907; one of them, Lem Motlow, soon bought out the other and ran the business, on and off, for about forty years.
Q 13In which year did Tennessee's statewide prohibition stop legal distilling of Jack Daniel's?
1910
Tennessee's statewide ban took effect in 1910, a full decade before national Prohibition; Motlow challenged the law and lost at the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Q 21Why is the water from the distillery's cave spring considered ideal for whiskey?
The limestone removes iron from it
The limestone removes iron from it: iron-heavy water gives whiskey a bad taste, and the spring flows from a cave at the base of a limestone cliff.
Q 22Which hot sauce is aged in barrels previously used for Jack Daniel's?
Tabasco
McIlhenny ages the pepper mash for Tabasco at Avery Island, Louisiana in white oak barrels that previously held Jack Daniel's whiskey.
Q 23Moore County, home of the distillery, is what kind of county under Tennessee law?
Dry
Q 14During Tennessee prohibition the company moved distilling to Birmingham, Alabama, and which other city?
St. Louis, Missouri
Motlow moved production to St. Louis, Missouri as well as Birmingham, but none of the whiskey made in either city was ever sold because of quality problems.
Q 15In which year did the Lynchburg distillery resume legal distilling?
1938
The distillery reopened in 1938; Tennessee's own prohibition outlived the 21st Amendment, and Motlow, by then a state senator, led the repeal effort.
Q 16Why did the Jack Daniel's distillery cease operations from 1942 to 1946?
The US government banned whiskey production during World War II
The US government banned whiskey production during World War II, turning distilleries to industrial alcohol; Motlow restarted in 1947 once good-quality corn was available again, and died that year.
Q 17What folksy name does the company give to dripping its whiskey through 10-foot stacks of sugar-maple charcoal?
Mellowing
The company calls the step charcoal mellowing; it is formally the Lincoln County Process, and the distillery burns and grinds its own charcoal before use.
Q 18What percentage of the Jack Daniel's mash bill is corn?
80%
Jack Daniel's mash is 80% corn; bourbon only requires 51%, and the higher share makes a sweeter spirit before the charcoal filtering softens it.
Q 19What does the term "sour mash" on the label mean?
Solids from a previous batch are mixed into the new one
Sour mash means solids from a previous batch are mixed into the new one, keeping acidity and fermentation consistent; nearly all bourbon is made the same way.
Q 20Where has Jack Daniel's made its own barrels since 2014?
Trinity, Alabama
The Jack Daniel Cooperage in Trinity, Alabama opened in 2014; before that the barrels came from the parent company's Louisville cooperage, and new charred oak gives the whiskey its colour.
Moore County is a dry county: it is legal to distil the whiskey there but not to sell it, apart from commemorative bottles under a special legislative exception.
Q 24Which proof was Jack Daniel's black label historically bottled at until 1987?
90
Black label was 90 proof until 1987; it dropped to 86 and then, in 2002, quietly to 80 proof, prompting a protest petition from Modern Drunkard magazine.
Q 25How does Gentleman Jack differ from standard Old No. 7?
It is charcoal-filtered twice instead of once
Gentleman Jack's difference is that it is charcoal-filtered twice instead of once; the second pass through sugar-maple charcoal comes after ageing, giving a lighter, smoother spirit.
Q 26Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey is technically not a whiskey but what?
A liqueur
Tennessee Honey is a liqueur: Jack Daniel's blended with honey liqueur and bottled at 35% ABV, below whiskey's 40% minimum; Tennessee Fire and Tennessee Apple follow the same formula.
Q 27Which famous singer was buried with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in 1998?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra was buried in 1998 with a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a pack of Camels and a Zippo lighter; the brand later released Sinatra Select and Sinatra Century for his 100th birthday.
Q 28In 2016 a campaign renamed the Jack and Coke 'The Lemmy' after which band's frontman?
Motörhead
Lemmy Kilmister, Motörhead's frontman, reportedly drank a bottle of Jack Daniel's a day for decades; after his death in December 2015 fans campaigned to rename the Jack and Coke 'The Lemmy'.
Q 29Which country singer wrote a song called "Jack Daniels" and later got his own Single Barrel Select?
Eric Church
Eric Church's song 'Jack Daniels' appeared on his album Chief, and the distillery later released a Single Barrel Select Eric Church Edition.
Q 30Which Formula 1 team became a Jack Daniel's partner ahead of the 2023 season?
McLaren
McLaren and Jack Daniel's announced a multi-year partnership before the 2023 Formula 1 season, and a limited-edition Old No. 7 bottle carried McLaren branding.