Content
Citation(s) & Footnote(s)
Book(s)No access / Whiskey Literature Notes Database (USWA)
Full written article reviewed through its ending. Source: No access.
Source argument
The proposed label appears inconsistent with the historical neutral-spirit distillation threshold.
Evidence map
Researcher synthesis
Preserve the chronology of an initial dispute and later clarification. The initial PR explanation is not itself an official TTB ruling; neutral spirits as a class should not be collapsed into vodka as a type.
Assessment
No original TTB decision attached. Main text says above 190 while quoted regulation says at-or-above 190; retain the distinction. January 2013 follow-up text, comments and label photograph reviewed and preserved as SUPP-063 and IMAGE-063-1. Historical rules are not current compliance guidance.
The photographed released label reads spirits distilled from grain, with 40% alcohol by volume and 80 proof. The follow-up attributes specialty-product clarification to Thomas K. Hogue; original correspondence remains unreviewed. No evidence here that regulations were rewritten.
Completion checklist
Follow-up and label evidence
Chuck Cowdery, “Jack Daniel’s Rye Now ‘Spirits Distilled from Grain’,” The Chuck Cowdery Blog, January 17, 2013, accessed September 6, 2026. Follow-up article.
The full written follow-up and comments were reviewed. Its label photograph visibly identifies the released product as spirits distilled from grain, 40% alcohol by volume (80 proof). This resolves the original label question at the level of the pictured bottle, not the authenticity of unpublished TTB correspondence. The article’s claimed influence on the label change is not independently established. Local evidence: SUPP-063.response and IMAGE-063-1.response, each hashed in its retrieval manifest.
