"It wouldn't be such a big deal if they didn't pin so much of their marketing on these few items," said author Peter Krass. "But they really do."

Krass makes his case in "Blood & Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel," and it has thrown him into a barroom brawl of words with spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp.

Both sides agree that Daniel was a true American success story who learned to make whiskey as a boy and struck out on his own with audacious marketing tactics that included shipping a keg to Queen Victoria.

But Krass said Daniel's was not the first registered distillery in the country and never won a gold medal for world's best whiskey.

On the Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 label, the whiskey is touted as being established and registered in 1866. Krass said land and deed records show Daniel didn't go into business until 1875.

Krass said it's also impossible that Jack's was the first registered distillery because many Northern distilleries were registered long before to comply with revenue laws.

Touting a document he said is from the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Krass said Old No. 7 won a gold medal for best Tennessee whiskey, not best whiskey in the world. Seven others won medals for "world's best" American whiskey.

Finally, Krass takes issue with the distillery's claim that the origins of the Old No. 7 label are a mystery. The author said it was the number government regulators first used to identify the whiskey, later adopted by Daniel as the official label once customers became accustomed to seeing it on tax stamps.

Louisville, Ky.-based Brown-Forman counters that it has put together as complete a picture as possible, given the fact that much of the story of Daniel and his whiskey has been passed down from generation to generation. And the company points out that records are inconclusive because of the upheaval of the Civil War, Reconstruction, courthouse fires and Prohibition during the distillery's earlier years.

"Because of inadequate record-keeping there is no way to prove the points on the life of Jack — there is no way to prove even when he was born," Brown-Forman spokesman Phil Lynch said.

Mark Waymack, a professor at Loyola University Chicago and an author of a book on American whiskeys, suspects Krass is probably right.

"It's not an outright falsehood, but it is not necessarily what it's purported to be," he said. "A lot of the marketing in the whiskey industry is like that."

Krass said the dispute is hardly trivial, "because through this misrepresentation Brown-Forman continues to build their Jack Daniel's brand to the possible detriment of their competitors."

Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 whiskey, also known as Black Label, is closing in on Johnnie Walker scotch whisky as the world's best-selling brand.

But Waymack said the Jack Daniel's brand success was only partly because of marketing. Its rise to the top in the '60s and '70s was also attributed to charcoal filtering, which gives the whiskey a smoother taste.

Krass said he thought his research would compel the company to adjust its marketing literature and lore told in tours at the distillery in Lynchburg, one of Tennessee's top tourist attractions. But he said company executives have twice told him they won't be making any such changes.