In July/August 2020 Jack Daniel’s released the 2020 version of the Eric Church Single Barrel Select bottle, a follow on release after their 2019 Eric Church Double Down Tour Single Barrel. This year’s bottle is a beautiful opaque black with a black and gold label. It came with a paper hang tag, also in black and gold.
The front of the label, and the front of the hang tag reads:
Special Edition Jack Daniel’s Eric Church Single Barrel Select Tennessee Whiskey
The rear of the hang tag reads:
Music and friendships were always important to Mr. Jack. That’s why we are proud to offer this special edition Jack Daniel’s single barrel package celebrating our longstanding friendship with Eric Church who shares Jack Daniel’s spirit of Community. In 2013 Eric and his wife, Katherine, created the non-profit “Chief Cares Fund” to impact lives around the globe and in our own neighborhoods.
For more information go to: www.ericchurch.com/chief-cares
The rear of the bottle reads:
This special edition Jack Daniel’s single barrel package celebrates our friendship with Eric Church. Master Distiller, Jeff Arnett hand-selected this 94 proof single barrel Tennessee Whiskey according to Eric Church’s favorite Jack Daniel’s taste profile.
In the photos below you might notice a metal hang tag as well. That tag was created by the Sunshine State Squires group on Facebook and available for purchase through them, though I don’t believe it is still available for purchase.
There are a variety of dates of bottling for the 2020 edition of the Eric Church release, with some dates in June 2020 and July 2020. I have bottles with both 6/26/2020 and 7/23/2020 bottling dates.
The Hunt
The Eric Church Single Barrel release was a hard to find bottle in 2020, selling very quickly where available. On Wednesday July 29th I was able to track down a bottle in Texas which I ordered and had a family member pick up. That order is still sitting in my cousin’s house in Texas until we can find a time to meet up post covid.
I found that Total Wine in Fairview Heights Illinois had it available online the morning of Saturday August 1st. I quickly placed an order for 3, packed the kids up in the car and headed out to run errands that morning. I was tempted to drive straight to IL to get them, but decided to stop and pick up a few fishing supplies before our camping trip that week.
While shopping in Cabela’s I missed a call from Fairview Heights, I returned the call and was told that the bottles on the shelf were all sold in 1.5 hours, before they could pull my online order, so they were cancelling the order. Missed opportunity #1.
On Wednesday August 12th a buddy of mine was able to locate availability via an online retailer in Florida. I placed an order of 2 bottles, one for me, one for him. Shortly after receiving that order the bottle also started showing up in the St. Louis market.
In St. Louis I had a few interesting hunts. I was pretty much hitting the local shops almost daily, Total Wine and More in Chesterfield, Dogwood Liquors in Ellisville, The Wine and Cheese Place in Chesterfield, Randalls, without any luck. All the locations when asked about the Eric Church bottle said they had more questions about that bottle than anything else, and they had no idea when/how many they would get. One evening in a local bourbon group I saw rumors that Total Wine down in Town & Country had a bottle, so I headed off under the guise of buying school supplies for the kids and hit TW first. They had 5 bottles at the time, with a limit of purchasing 1 per person.
I picked up a bottle and alerted a few friends who might be interested in picking one up. I then went to Wal-Mart with my son and purchased the needed school supplies, along with a $5 long sleeve T-Shirt for myself. After leaving Wal-Mart I changed my shirt, put on a different (covid) mask and went back to Total Wine and acquired a second bottle. I totally felt like a rebel. There were still 4 bottles visible on the shelf when I arrived, 3 when I left. A buddy of mine went at 9am the next morning and got a bottle from the same location.
Later that next evening I went to Total Wine T&C again, the shelf row where the bottles were was empty, and the tag showed the dreaded green “out of stock” message that Total Wine uses. I was dejected, I had been hoping to grab a bottle for a friend. I decided I would dig a little bit, and guess what I found? One last bottle of Eric Church mixed in with the other Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel options. I grabbed it and checked out!
I continued to check for more bottles at the TW in Chesterfield, each time apparently just missing when they had them available. From what I could gather, they had at least 3 cases available, one was out on Saturday August 23rd, another on Friday August 28th and early in the morning on Saturday August 29th.
On Friday the 28th, I found another source online that showed the EC release was available in St. Louis. I placed an online order, trying to get three bottles from the location, and then “waited” for the order to be accepted. By the end of the work day, I was still waiting. I took off after work and went up to North County to the location that showed as having a bottle online, and was able to purchase one bottle at a price of $64 plus tax. The next day I received a cancellation of my online order, saying they were out of stock. Online however that location still shows availability. After the successful pickup, I stopped at a variety of other liquor stores on my way back over to west county and only found one more store that had any in stock.
There is a liquor store on the Rock Road, I won’t name it, the girl behind the counter said they had some, but she wasn’t sure if she could sell it, it was under the counter behind the register. She called someone and asked them about the bottle, they told her she could sell it. She told me it was $250, I laughed as I walked out the door.
I’ll keep hunting, a big part of the enjoyment in this whiskey game is that hunt.
Where To Buy
You can still find the bottle online, though not at many locations that will ship out of their home states. Bottle price as of August 2020 varies from $60 up to $250.
Release: 2020
Proof: 94
Size: 750ml
Price: $53.99
