Saturday, 25 August 2012

Jack Daniel’s Distillery

For those of you who camp, a visit to David Crockett State Park in Tennessee is definitely worth a stay. This is really a beautiful park!

Leaving the park, we drove to Lynchburg, TN for a visit to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery.

The Jack Daniel Distillery was designated a National Historic Site in 1972. The distillery was started in 1866 by Newton “Jack” Daniel. Except for the period between 1901 – 1939 (the Prohibition Era), the distillery has operated continuously at this location. They produce more than 20 million gallons a year and store more than 80 million gallons on site. The company distributes its product to over 170 countries worldwide.

We began our tour of the facility at 9:00a. One of the first stops was where they made their charcoal used in their filtering process. To remove any hint of charcoal taste during filtering, they first soak the sugar maple used to make the charcoal with raw whiskey. Look closely at the picture where Meriam is licking her hand. It seems everyone in the tour was “given” a sample in their hand. Meriam stopped requesting “seconds” after her tenth sample (and it was only 9:20a!) Another interesting stop during the tour was when we were invited to “sniff” the sour mash that was fermenting in their hugh vats. One whiff cleared the sinuses!

Photographs inside the facility were not permitted, with the exception of their “Buy the Barrel” bottling room. You can buy a special barrel of Jack Daniel’s. This barrel is hand chosen and hand bottled into approximately 240 special 750ml bottles. The price for this barrel ranges from $9000 to $12000 depending you one’s local tax. For you “high rollers” out there, this would make a great Christmas present!

The company has done a great job of keeping the “feel” of the old distillery while modernizing in order to keep up with demand.

From Lynchburg, we drove on to Cades Cove Campground in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.