Jack Daniel’s follows trend for honey whiskey

Jack Daniel’s has launched a honey flavoured whiskey taglined “A little bit of honey. A whole lot of Jack.”

Using the Old No 7 whiskey, Jack Daniel’s has added a honey liqueur to create this new blend which continues a trend of flavoured whiskies, as Jim Beam Honey was launched in the UK last week.

Jack Daniel’s Tennesse Honey is already available in the US and will come on-stream for the UK on-trade in May and the off-trade in August.

In the next few months it will also be launched in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

The drink is aimed at young adults and women and is designed to be taken as a chilled shot or as a mixed beverage.

Mark Davis, area marketing manager for American whiskey at Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands, said: “Based on the research we have seen we think this drink will have mass appeal to both genders 

“We think this product will be gender-neutral.

“During the research it was obvious that women loved the taste and the branding, but males loved it as well.

“We think Jack Daniel’s Tennesse Honey gives us an opportunity to recruit new consumers to the brand. Yes there is an age that this is marketed at but we are hopeful that this product will become a special occasion drink for many different consumers.

“It may not be drunk everyday but it is drunk at special occasions and this is a combination of what we saw in the US and our own research.”

Davis also explained that a lot of UK market research was conducted before the product was launched here, despite the success of the honey flavoured Jack Daniel’s in the US.

“It was such a huge success in the US that it did take some people by surprise and here in the UK we have been looking at consumer research and taking in the higher than expected sales in the US – making our research for the UK market very important and that gave us the confidence to launch here,” he added.

“There are no plans for other flavoured products but we will keep an eye on the market. We are not looking at other extensions of the product – that is not to say we will not look – we are very excited about the potential of this product and we are keen to see how well this does with consumers.”