A Tour of Jack Daniel's

[TNbourbon]

...Post more pictures if you have them!..

Well, okay, Jeff -- but let me apologize in advance for the limited scope and quality of these. In the latter case, I've just never bought a more-than-serviceable digital camera, and in the former instance, the most interesting parts of the distillery -- where whiskey was actually being made -- were off-limits to flash photography.

Chris.JPG
The interesting thing here is not the tour guide, Chris -- who answered, "I don't know." in a couple of instances, which made the answers he did provide seem more reliable -- but the stacked ricks of sugar maple in the background. The 4"X4"X4' 'planks' are stacked 4'X4'X6' and burned in the formation in which they appear here, under a hood which first soaks them in 140-proof whiskey as 'lighter fluid'.

control room.JPG
This is the computerized control room for the 5-column stillhouse.

Single Barrel.JPG
This display represents a single barrel, with the original barrel and the 240 or so bottles that come from it after 6-8 years of aging. This particular one shows 2001 as a bottling date.

StaveLabels.JPG
This is an example of a barrel stave -- charring still adhering to the reverse -- I purchased ($20) at the barrel shop in nearby Lynchburg, the town of which serves as the 'gift shop' for the distillery. The labels are of historical Jack Daniel's brands. Most interesting to me is the middle one, "Belle of Lincoln", a bottle of which goes for huge dollars when offered for sale. Jack Daniel, though never married, was considered a ladies' man, and many identities have been offered as the "Belle of Lincoln" (County). The simplest and probably accurate one is his step-sister, Belle, for whom he provided a home through much of her childhood.

whiskey safe.JPG
Here are the whiskey 'safes' -- all padlocked -- at the top of the middle three of five 40-foot column stills producing at Jack Daniel's.

[Grant]

The single barrel display is great - it really makes it easy to see the actual end results from one barrel.

Thanks for the pictures.

[mrt]

Thanks for this very informative and interesting thread. This is a great plus to the online distillery tour on their website, especially for me, becouse I had to be contended with the low-band-width version (I'll switch to DSL this summer). Besides, this is from the eyes of a visitor, to the eyes of a very far away visitor, who is not much likely to be there in the short run

[Ambernecter]

Good stuff Tim!

Lots I didn't know in your original points.

Great pics - nice to see the open box of Jack in the control room - bet a free bottle a night would make the nightshift fly by!

[Paulbrad25]

Thanks Tim, great thread.
How about we pass a hat around to buy you a better camera and send you off to all the other distilleries we can find. The amount we'd learn from you would be phenomenal.

The bar has been set guys, we need reviews of other distillerys now, who's next.

[ThomasH]

I took the JD distillery tour last April and while the tour was great, the guide was a wise guy. Someone in the group said something to the effect that JD was bourbon. The tour guide said, around here, we don't use the word for that inferior stuff from up north. I immediately raised my hand and asked him about Old Forrester and Woodford Reserve. Somebody else in the group asked me what I meant. I told them that not only were they brands of Kentucky bourbon, they were brands produced at distilleries owned by Brown Forman, parent of Jack Daniels. I received a dirty look from that guy like I don't ever remember getting in my 40+ years on this earth. This guy was serious and totally out of bounds. I used to drink JD regularly until they dropped it down to 80 proof. Now, it is a last resort brand if nothing else worth drinking is available. Contrary to what this individual might be thinking, there are any number of brands of bourbon that completely blow JD out of the water. The more I read about JD, the more I consider it to be a trumped up, mumbo jumbo brand. It didn't start out that way, the marketers at Brown Forman allowed it to become that way. Long live Kentucky and its native drink!

Thomas

[CrispyCritter]

16 gallons of gasoline (enough to get me to Lynchburg): $44.80
Distillery Tour: $0
The look on a public relations flack's face when you call him on his BS: Priceless.