How do you know when white whiskey has become a Big Thing? When Jack Daniel’s, the largest spirits brand in the world, gets into the game.

By way of backstory, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 uses a fairly traditional Bourbon-style mashbill, 80% corn, the other 20% rye and malted barley. This is the way it has been, and (undoubtedly) the way it shall always be.

But that doesn’t mean JD can’t make other products. Gentleman Jack is charcoal filtered twice instead of just once, like Old No. 7 is, for example. Not a big difference, but it’s something.

Now JD is working on its biggest line extension since Prohibition, with its first wholly new mashbill: an honest-to-god rye whiskey. Made of 70 percent rye, 18 percent corn, and 12 percent malted barley, it’s unlike anything JD has ever offered before.

It’s also not going to be ready for a few years.

JD is taking an interesting step in deciding not to wait until 2015 or so to release its new whiskey and is instead giving the unaged version a limited release. You’re reading this correctly: For its next trick, JD is releasing a white whiskey based on this future product. This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard of this being done, but it makes sense, a kind of sneak preview of a whiskey to come.

Looking at JD Unaged Rye as it stands today, you won’t find any massive surprises or departure from the current state of white whiskeys. Lots of grain on the nose, very raw, and typical of unaged whiskey no matter what the mashbill is. The body is surprisingly mild, and the funkiness of most white whiskeys is almost absent here. Instead, touches of chocolate (cocoa powder), coconut, and some tropical notes, particularly banana, dominate. The finish is smooth and light, almost harmless — that JD charcoal mellowing process really does strip out a lot of the more unpleasant flavors. The overall effect is interesting, but it’s honestly far from earth shattering.

The biggest problem with this is that Jack is suggesting a $50 price tag for this 80-proof spirit, which puts it at roughly three times the price of a bottle of JD that’s spent years in a barrel. That would also suggest that, once this rye comes out of barrel for its official, aged release, it should cost on the order of $75 or more. Both of those are crazy ideas, and I suspect that calmer heads will prevail such that Jack Daniel’s Rye (or whatever it’s called), when it’s finally released, won’t hit more than $25 or $30 at your local liquor store.

That aside, how can you get it? Per the company: Jack Daniel’s Unaged Rye is scheduled to be available in December at select retail outlets throughout Tennessee including the White Rabbit Bottle Shop at the Jack Daniel’s Visitor Center in Lynchburg, Tenn.  In January 2013, it will be available in limited quantities in other select markets throughout the U.S.

80 proof.

Update: Reader Matt Bradford says JD expects to sell the new whiskey beginning (around) December 15, 2012.

B+ / $50 / jackdaniels.com 

Jack Daniel's Unaged Tennessee Rye

$50

8.5

Rating

8.5/10