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"A battle is brewing over Tennessee whiskey. Though the implications may affect micro-distilleries, customer satisfaction, and the environment, the battle is being waged over the definition of &amp;quot;Tennessee whiskey.&amp;quot; According to The Spirits Business, a May 2013 law \u2014 spearheaded by Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s owner Brown-Forman \u2014 gained recognition for Tennessee whiskey as a U.S. designation and defined strict regulations of production standards required to label a product &amp;quot;Tennessee whiskey.&amp;quot; Namely, the product must be fermented in-state from mash of at least 51 percent corn, aged in new charred oak barrels, charcoal mellowed, and bottled at a minimum of 80 proof. State lawmakers are now considering loosening these standards, ultimately at the insistence of Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s primary competitor, Diageo.   Republican state Rep. Bill Sanderson argues that the biggest change resulting from his proposed bill would be the reuse of barrels, which would save companies considerable money (about $600 per barrel) and allow micro-distilleries with limited funds to produce more whiskey. In a conversation with AP, Sanderson said, &amp;quot;There are a lot of ways to make high-quality whiskey, even if it&amp;#039;s not necessarily the way Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s does it. What gives them the right to call theirs Tennessee whiskey, and not others?&amp;quot; The master distiller at Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s counters that this bill is a move &amp;quot;to weaken a title on a label that we&amp;#039;ve worked very hard for.&amp;quot; Though Sanderson and Diageo both site the production gains micro-distilleries would see as a result, Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s has pointedly asserted that &amp;quot;[t]his is about Diageo, a large foreign company with more interest in Scotch and Bourbon, trying to weaken what Tennessee whiskey is.&amp;quot; While the big voices in the discussion have resorted to name-calling \u2014 Sanderson called Jack Daniel&amp;#039;s a &amp;quot;big bully&amp;quot; \u2014 if the legislation passes, it will remain largely up to the consumer to pass judgment on the quality of the product under laxer standards. As a consumer, what are you most concerned about in this argument? Do you care whether your whiskey earns the title &amp;quot;Tennessee whiskey&amp;quot; or are you concerned solely with the quality of the product?  [Via Grub Street, AP, The Spirits Business] Find more great food content on Delish:    Search for the perfect recipe from our homepage Find out the latest food news Get a recipe book to save your favorite dishes Sign up for our free newsletters Check us out on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a40660/tennessee-whiskey-standards-legislation/>