Rolling into Lynchburg- Jack Daniel's Territory

1st Jack Daniel's Bottle

Today's Bottle

Thursday we decided to go to the Jack Daniel's Distillery. I'm not a whiskey drinker but 1/2 of our group is a big fan! The pleasant and scenic drive  takes about 1 1/2 hours  from Nashville.








Rocky was excited to get his mileage on the new truck up to 26.2 miles per gallon! Woohoo!
Lynchburg is a small town of 500 people and it consists of the distillery, town square (where you can get all things Jack Daniel's) and one stop light.  The parking area about a block from the distillery is very large and has a commercial feel. No purses! Only fanny packs! Not something we happened to have in our possession. Since that's where the secret is kept, security is very high.  There are  a couple of photo ops in the area waiting to catch the shuttle to the distillery.

There are a number of tours to select from, our selection was the Angels Share tour. According to my traveling partner the Angels Share is the whiskey vapors that escape the barrels and float into the atmosphere. Our tour guide, Jason, was extremely knowledgeable of all things distillery and the history of the entire brand. He was local born and raised in Lynchburg and deeply dedicated to the company. The tour took us through the entire process from barrel making to charcoal making, distilling, and bottling. The entire process is done on site with the exception of sourcing the sugar maple wood for their charcoal filtering from 2 adjacent communities.

The tour culminated in a live barrel-aging warehouse which had an air-conditioned all glass-enclosed sitting area to taste 5 of the Jack Daniel's offerings. Half of this couple enjoyed this part of the tour a lot more than the other half! And that led to a trip to the bottle shop for a bottle of Old No27 Gold which I presume was Rocky's favorite .

During the tour there were 3 elements that stood out to me:

1. All Jack Daniel's brands are made right there on the distillery property in Lynchburg and shipped out to 174 countries around the world. 
2. Jack Daniel's brands are all made from varying percentages of corn, rye and malted barley and water and ABSOLUTELY nothing else. 
3. The water used comes from a natural constant 56 degree cave-spring on the distillery property. Every bottle since it's inception has been distilled using this water source. 

Cave-Springs

Tastings!

Another interesting note is that the Jack Daniel's distillery team is very proud of their 99% recycling achievement--everything is recycled!

One nice perk of the new ride is a dedicated wifi hotspot which allows me to use my MacBook on the road! yay! If the level of detail on today's post seems enhanced a little birdie chimed in as I typed. 😘

Stay tuned for more as we RollTimers head to Asheville, NC!