johnrobe Posted September 6, 2001 Share Posted September 6, 2001 <html> A friend of mine, Michelle, came up from Dallas, TX (I lived & worked in Dallas for about 4 years) last Thursday to Nashville for the long holiday weekend. We decided to make the 1 1/2 hr. trip down to Lynchburg to tour Jack Daniel's distillery. First things first, we had breakfast at the Pancake Pantry, a Nashville institution where you can occassionally spot a country music star. We were each served a plate of pancakes the size of a small mountain that we couldn't finish. On to Lynchburg!! The last half of the drive from Nashville is on small 2 lane highways, a pretty drive through the rolling hills of southern middle Tennessee (it's also Tennessee Walking Horse country...quite a few horse farms). We roll into Lynchburg and are greeted by a sign proudly stating the town's population of 361 which has appeared on the labels of JD black label for as long as I can remember. Either there is some serious population control in Lynchburg or the sign is false. Yet as we drove into town, which consists of the distillery and a small town square, it feels as thought one would be hard-pressed to find 361 people. Jack Daniel's Visitor Center: Our first stop is at the impressive one story, stone visitor center which was just opened in May 2000 (the old visitor center is now a barrelhouse). The interior has a mountain lodge feel, with hardwood floors and columns, and contains the exhibit hall (a miniature museum of Jack Daniel's early days and the whiskey-making process in general), the White Rabbit Saloon (more on that later), a small auditorium, and some administrative offices. Observations: The exhibit hall is pretty good with lots of old Jack Daniel's paraphenalia. Among other things there is an old suit and hat which belonged to Jack (he was a small guy, standing at 5'2" and wearing a size 4 shoe), and some old bottles of Jack Daniel's Peach Brandy (who new?). There are also several hardwood islands with flat screen monitors and keyboards for people to register online and, if so desired, take an online tour. It actually doesn't look tacky because you never see a CPU and they've done a nice job of blending the monitors/keyboards with the furniture that house them. I only glanced at one of the monitors. It appears that this feature is geared more toward foreign tourists, with registration and tours being offered in multiple languages. My first reaction was, hey, I'm here, why would I want to take an online tour? Our tour group is rounded up and we watch the obligatory video, then we step outside for the short shuttle ride to the Rickyard. Our tour guide is Sammy, a 50ish man decked out in the requisite blue-jean overalls, who I gather has been giving tours for several years. Rickyard At the rickyard are several stacks or "ricks" of locally obtained sugar maple. The ricks of cut sugar maple are subjected to a carefully controlled burn (the ricks are hosed down once they reach the charcoal stage so that they don't burn all the way down to ashes). Our picture was taken at the Rickyard. That's me, back row, third from the left and Michelle is in front of, and just to the right of me (those are ricks of sugar maple behind us). After the rickyard we passed a couple of 1920's era vehicles which have been converted to Jack Daniel's fire trucks (kinda hokey if you ask me). Cave Spring Next we come to the entrance of a small cave, out of which flows the water for JD after it has passed through untold miles of limestone. Man, did that cool cave breeze feel welcome on a hot August afternoon! I have to say that that water was some of the clearest I've ever seen. In front of the cave is a bronze statue of Jack (which replaced a life-size marble statue of Jack now in the visitor center). Jack Daniel's Office Just a few yards in front of Cave Spring is the only building from the original distillery still standing, Jack Daniel's office. Except for the historical significance it's an unremarkable 3 room building with little more than a couple of old desks, a wood-burning stove, checkerboard game and several portraits of Jack and the Motlows. At this point a torrential rain begins. Michelle and I each have umbrellas.....which are both safe and sound in the car. Stillhouse We race to the next building and crowd around one of the huge, 40,000 gallon steel fermentation tanks. There are three tanks in the room and all three are full and bubbling. Ahhh, the smell of beer and grain. It just doesn't get any better....well, at least until you reach the barrelhouse. From here we move on to the massive, 100 foot copper stills, which weren't running. The older ones hold approx. 25,000 gallons, the newer ones, 50,000 gallons. (note: there was a skeleton crew at JD because most of the production crew got Friday off for Labor Day weekend). Charcoal Mellowing Sammy makes a big deal out of this, as this is what separates Tennessee Whiskey from bourbon. There are several large, covered cylindrical vats of sugar maple charcoal with a sprinkler system over the charcoal out of which drips the 140 proof white dog. It takes the young whiskey about 2 weeks to work its way through 10 feet of charcoal (I wonder how many years of barrel aging is attained with 2 weeks of charcoal filtering..heh, heh). ;-) Sammy fans the top of one of the vats letting out some of the vapor...I have to admit, it was a nice sweet, caramel, alcohol smell. Bottling Next we stop by where they bottle JD Single Barrel. The line is not running but there is a short video of the process overhead and a nice display of 240 bottles (the # of bottles they get from one barrel) of JD Single Barrel. I was mildly surprised to learn that they hand-label the JD Single Barrel. Barrelhouse There's just nothing quite like the smell of a Barrelhouse. That sweet caramel, vanilla, and wood shop smell that just begs you to sample the contents of the peacefully slumbering whiskey in the barrel. If I had the cash to build a log cabin in the mountains, I think it would be built from used whiskey barrels. There are 1 million gallons of whiskey per barrelhouse and JD has 48 barrelhouses. From the Barrelhouse we reentered the Visitor Center through the White Rabbit Saloon. We were given free glasses of lemonade and shown where we can have our tour cards time/date stamped. White Rabbit was the name of an actual saloon in Lynchburg which predated Prohibition. There is a large bar in the new White Rabbit where they serve tea, water, lemonade and snacks. There is a large mirror behind the bar lined with different bottles of Jack Daniel's and shot glasses. My hopes were raised, but alas the bottles are only for show and cannot be consumed on the premises. There is a small store within the saloon where they sell some of the available commemorative bottles of JD. This is fairly new as Lynchburg is in a dry county and Jack Daniel's ability to sell liquor was passed by referendum in 1995. Sammy was kind of sweet on Michelle and gave her an autographed postcard that was a picture of he and other JD employees in front of the old Jack Daniel's office. I kidded her about that all the way home. Tennessee Squire's Room I had borrowed my father's Tennessee Squire card and after the tour we went by the visitor desk and I asked to see the Squire's room. My father and I have the same first name, so I figured I could get in easily enough, although I felt a bit like a double secret agent...being an actual Maker's Mark Ambassador. The Squire room is nicely furnished with plush leather furniture although the room itself is a bit small and would probably only hold a half dozen people. There are lots of little trinkets different Squires have sent in to be placed on their 1 square inch plots of land (like miniature lawn mowers, outhouses, cabins, etc.) and pictures from different Squires gatherings. The hostess puts together a goodie bag for us including a couple of Squire "Tennessee Tippler" glasses. She pointed out that the glasses are imperfect ("Tennessee Tippler" is off-center over the JD logo) which she said makes them more valuable on the collector's market (I had to hold back a smirk because she went through great pains to ensure that the glasses were collector's items and not shoddy merchandise). Also included was some information about the private Squires' portion of their website and most importantly, two 50ml bottles of JD..one Gentleman Jack, one Single Barrel. I briefly sweated the part where she asked me to fill out a Squires visit register. Of course I know my father's name, address, etc. but I thought they might notice that I'm not 67 (I'm 29), so I filled in my own DOB. Lynchburg Town Square We stopped at the Lynchburg General Store, the Pepper Patch and the Barrel Shop. The General Store has just about everything you could think of with the Jack Daniel's logo.....really. Michelle and I played the game of guessing an item that we couldn't find with the logo. I won. We could find no Jack Daniel's toilet paper. The Pepper Patch has various food items that contain Jack Daniels...JD candy, various jellies with JD, cakes soaked in JD, etc. And then there is the Barrel Shop. They convert used JD barrels into different types of furniture...end tables, bars, chairs, etc. (maybe I will have that cabin). Conclusion All in all it was a good tour. Of course it was aimed at the general public and not as detailed as we bourbonheads would like, but I didn't expect it to be. My general impression is that there are two main themes they are trying to get across (and not ones that you might think would naturally go together): One, that they still make whiskey the same old way they always have, that they're still old-fashioned and folksy and that will never change. Two, that they make a huge amount of whiskey which is number 1 in the world. Sammy made it a point several times to say that Jack Daniels is the number 1 selling whiskey in the world, keying on the massive amounts they produce (6.35 million cases last year (2 1/2 gallons per case) (I held my tongue from saying that #1 in sales doesn't automatically mean #1 in taste). The next day they were celebrating Jack Daniel's birthday and Master Distiller Jimmy Bedford was going to be on hand to sign bottles.....but we already had plans to go see the TN vs. Syracuse football game and head on to the Smoky Mtns. Cheers I might make it to the Bourbon festival for Saturday and Sunday. Finding accomodations this late is proving to be tough. I may have to stay in Elizabethtown. I'll post again when I'm sure. </html> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted September 6, 2001 Share Posted September 6, 2001 Thanks for the great account of your visit to JD. Although I have visited virtually every Kentucky distillery, including most of the defunct ones, I have never visited any of the Tennessee plants. I have worked with Brown-Forman before, though, and know they do a great job of maintaining the JD image in all things. At one time, maybe still, if you called their 800 number they played taped background sound effects (e.g., the slamming of a screen door) to make it sound like you had reached the phone in the Lynchburg General Store.Hope to see you at the Bourbon Festival.<A target="_blank" HREF=http://cowdery.home.netcom.com>--Chuck Cowdery</A> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbutler Posted September 6, 2001 Share Posted September 6, 2001 John,Chuck beat me to it, but allow me to say that was a wonderful post. Contributions like this are a good portion of what makes SB such a unique place on the web.Hope to see you in Bardstown!Cheers,Jim ButlerStraightbourbon.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted September 6, 2001 Share Posted September 6, 2001 Good job JR! Like Chuck, I've also never been to the JD distillery. Thanks for taking the time to draft and post your report. It also shows that couples can have fun together while doing bourbonic things.Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitzg Posted September 6, 2001 Share Posted September 6, 2001 Thanks for the overview...as others have said it is really a nice posting. We almost headed there a year ago and decided to go to Jim Beam instead. While interesting Beam is not much of a tour. Makers Mark was much better. So...thanks!Keep trying regularly regarding rooms in Bardstown. As of last week only Thursday and Friday were sold out at the General Nelson. People do change their plans. Greg<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by kitzg on Thu Sep 6 11:07:31 2001 (server time).</FONT></P> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnrobe Posted September 7, 2001 Author Share Posted September 7, 2001 Thanks to everyone for the kind words.So far I've had no luck finding accomodations in Bardstown for Saturday night. However, I have booked a room in Elizabethtown so I'll see all of you there after all. I'll keep checking on Bardstown for cancellations. I'd really like to run in the 5K Saturday but it would be a pain to go back and forth just for a shower afterward. Oh well.I gather that some Straightbourbon folks are getting together at some point. I haven't noticed a definitive time so please keep me posted. The only truly unique bottle I have is my California only Old Potrero, but I'll be happy to bring it along and share.CheersJR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted September 8, 2001 Share Posted September 8, 2001 JR after Friday night you won't be able to run five inches much less 5K. You won't need a shower because you'll wake up in the bathtub. This is a bourbon festival remember? Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted September 8, 2001 Share Posted September 8, 2001 Both Parker Beam (master distiller at Heaven Hill) and John Hansell (publisher of The Malt Advocate) are avid runners and consider it a necessary counterpoint to their bourbon consumption. I can't say I agree, but they are both in much better shape than I am.<A target="_blank" HREF=http://cowdery.home.netcom.com>--Chuck Cowdery</A> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnrobe Posted September 9, 2001 Author Share Posted September 9, 2001 Well, I'm not in my top running form right now but I've run a few 1/2 marathons (the last one this past February and yes, I do want to bag a full marathon) and a 5K is usually the minimum amount I do when I go for a run. But usually the night before I carbo load and drink a lot of water. How many carbs are in a shot of bourbon? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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