 He learned the various details of the production process and was named as the company's sixth master distiller in 1988, where he was responsible for supervising the "milling, yeasting, fermenting and distilling" involved in making the whiskey using a network of fermenters, stills, and vats.According to his obituary in "The New York Times", he had "what he considered one of the most enviable jobs imaginable — making sure Jack Daniel's Old No.7 Tennessee Whiskey tasted just the way it had since 1866".