On the Tennessee shelf, the markup climbs the Jack ladder

Four bottles make up the desk, with a middle price of $79. Three of them are Jack Daniel's, climbing from the entry pour up to a single barrel, and the fourth is a small outsider. To read the shelf I stood each bottle next to the ten whiskies the model rates nearest it on flavour and took the middle price of those ten. That is the bottle's neighbourhood, the going rate for the drams most like it this week. The striking thing about Tennessee is how little the flavour moves as the price climbs. The charcoal-mellowed, corn-sweet signature that defines the style is the loudest note in every one of these, top to bottom. What the ladder sells you is strength, format and a single-barrel story, not a different whisky. And every rung of it sits over its neighbourhood.

The reason the family all taste of a piece is a step the others down the road in Kentucky skip. Before it ever sees a barrel, Tennessee whiskey is filtered slowly through several feet of sugar-maple charcoal, which rounds off the sharp edges and lays down that sweet, sooty, charcoal-and-caramel signature you meet in the first sip of all four of these. It is the thing that makes a Tennessee whiskey a Tennessee whiskey rather than a bourbon, and it is why the model keeps lining these bottles up next to each other: on flavour they really are close kin. So when the price triples from the bottom of this shelf to the top, it is not buying you a new experience. It is buying you more of the same one, dialled up.

Gentleman Jack is the entry, and the one closest to fair. At $70 against a neighbourhood near $61, it is about 15% over, a step of nine dollars. It is the smooth one: sweet and caramel-led, light oak, a soft charcoal note and a touch of banana, charcoal-mellowed twice so the edges are rounded off. For an easy sipping Tennessee whiskey it is the sensible buy of the four, and the premium over similar drams is small enough to ignore.

From there the gaps widen fast. Jack Daniel's Bonded is $96 against a neighbourhood near $58, about 66% over. Bottled-in-bond means a higher strength and a legal guarantee of age and provenance, and it drinks with more muscle: the same caramel and char, richer and spicier, a fuller body. A good pour. But two-thirds over the going rate for similar whiskey is a real premium for what is still, at heart, the house style turned up.

The Single Barrel Select is where the ladder gets steep. At $117 against a neighbourhood near $59, it is about 98% over, essentially double the going rate for the drams the model lines up beside it. It is the best of the Jacks in the glass, no argument: rich and layered, caramel and maple, dried fruit and oak spice over the familiar charcoal base, each barrel a little different from the last. The single-barrel idea is genuinely appealing. The price is the thing to sit with. You are paying twice what similar whiskey costs for a more concentrated version of a flavour you can get most of for seventy dollars.

The outsider does not rescue the shelf the way you might hope. Wanderin Rogue is the cheapest bottle here at $56, but against a neighbourhood near $45 it is still about 24% over its company. It is a lighter, sweeter take on the style: caramel and a gentle spice, a wisp of smoke, a citrus lift that the Jacks do not have. A pleasant, undemanding whiskey and the lowest tag on the desk, just not the bargain its position at the bottom might suggest. On this shelf, even the cheap seat is priced above the room.

So, by what you want. If you want the Tennessee style at the fairest price, Gentleman Jack is the pick: the smallest premium, the smoothest pour, and plenty of the charcoal-sweet character that is the whole point. If you want more power and do not mind paying for the bonded guarantee, the Bonded delivers it, with a premium attached. Save the Single Barrel Select for when you specifically want the best glass in the range and a near-double price is a spend you meant to make. And the Wanderin Rogue is the one to try if you are curious about a lighter, citrus-touched version, as long as you know the low tag still sits over its company. There is a wider point hiding in that for anyone who likes this style. Because the charcoal signature carries all the way up the range, the cheaper bottles give you most of what the dear ones do. The Single Barrel is genuinely better, richer and more layered, but it is better by a margin, not by a different order of thing, and you pay for that margin twice over. If you drink Tennessee whiskey neat and slowly, the step up might be worth it to you. If you mostly pour it over ice or into a glass with cola, the extra sixty or seventy dollars disappears entirely, and Gentleman Jack was always going to be the sensible call.

The honest read on Tennessee this week is that it is one flavour at four prices, all of them above the going rate, and the smart money stays near the bottom of the ladder.