From the pack of small plastic bottles comes this, the apple version of Jack Daniels. I was not a particular fan of the straight whiskey, but I'm not really a whiskey drinker. My belief was that this sample pack of travel sized whiskeys might be to lure in people like me who would not normally give a full bottle of whiskey a shot. As a result, they have the straight whiskey and then three flavored whiskeys. This is the first of the flavored whiskeys, the apple. I recently was told by someone about the new surge of flavored whiskeys, and I don't know what is driving it, but I'm willing to do my share.
Once again, there's not much to say about the look. It's a brown liquor that causes weeping on the glass and is otherwise not particularly notable. The aroma, however, is quite noteworthy. I was expecting something more along the lines of an apple pie moonshine then what I'm getting here. This smells more like a cider. Specifically, a cider that uses granny smith apples or one of the tart variety of green apples. Actually, it smells really good. It smells almost exactly like Jolly Rancher sour apple flavor.It does not taste like Jolly Rancher green apple flavor. It taste like whiskey. After a while, maybe the inhaling of aroma is changing my mind on exactly what it tastes like, as I now kind of feel like a little bit of apple that has been added to the mix. Generally, though, this is pretty much just whiskey. It has the same whiskey burn, the same questionable smoothness, and the associated wood flavor. The banana that I tasted when I had just regular Jack Daniels doesn't seem to be here. Maybe that has been supplanted by the Apple.
Further sips confirm that this tastes like whiskey, but the apple comes more forward. It's not flat-out bad, but this isn't lighting any fires. If I recall, I gave the straight Jack Daniels a 1.25 out of five, and this is going to be better than that. In fact, this will probably enter the average category, so I guess it has that going for it. Are they trying to do the same thing that the moonshine producers try to do? Is the goal just to cover up the taste of the beverage that you're selling? I don't know what's going on anymore.
Bottom Line: Jack Daniels is better if it doesn't taste like Jack Daniels.
2.0/5