Sunday, April 29, 2012

Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 12"x12" oil

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  Jack Daniel was a real person and was a legend from birth to death and in between he created Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.  No one really knows exactly when Jack was born.  A town fire destroyed the courthouse records and conflicting dates on Mr. Jack's and his mother's headstones have left his date of birth in question.  It is customary to celebrate Mr. Jack's birthday in September - so he gets a whole month.   But for a man as unique as Jack, one day just wouldn't seem proper anyway.  
As the story goes, Mr Jack arrived at work early one morning and tried to open the safe in his office.   Thing is, he couldn't recall the combination.   In his frustration he gave that safe a good solid kick.  The blow broke his toe and infection set in, leading to the blood poisoning that would take his life in 1911.  Because he never married or had children, he deeded the Distillery to his hard-working nephew, Lem Motlow.   Some people say Jack not only left his tennessee whiskey behind, he left us all a valuable lesson as well:  Don't go to work early.
He is buried in the Lynchburg, KY, town cemetery and you can find his grave by looking for the two chairs next to his headstone.   It's said that the chairs were placed there to comfort the many local ladies who mourned his passing.
Many stories have been passed down about the significance of Old No. 7.  Some say that Jack had 7 girlfriends, or that the way he wrote his "J" looked like a 7.   Some say he chose the number 7 simply because it's lucky.  One story goes that the recipe for Jack Daniels was Mr. Jack's 7th recipe or 7th trial batch.  One story says that is was the railroad shipping number on a barrel, we'll never know for sure.
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1 comment:

Jody Regan said...

I'm enjoying the glowing whiskey bottles and glasses, but this bottle is so beautifully rendered, and powerfully drawn. Nice.