11 Aug 2024 - Jack Daniels Tour/Tasting; Arnold Air Force Base

 

This morning we drove west of Tullahoma to Lynchburg TN to tour and taste Jack Daniels Distillery.  This distillery was established in the 1830s by Jasper "Jack" Daniel and officially registered in 1866, making it the first registered distillery in the United States. 

We loitered in the lobby area until our tour time, looking over their various displays. 

We will see the entrance to this cave system later during our tour.

Soon our tour commenced, led by a young lady with a very thick Tennessee accent.  I found her very difficult to understand with the background noise of the distillery and other tour participants.  We loaded into a tour bus that transported us to where the walking portion of the tour started.  The rest of the tour we walked and climbed / descended stairs.  

As we drove to the starting point we passed one of their oldest rickhouses, where the barrels are allowed to sit on their sides for years while the whiskey ages.  

As we deboarded the bus, we made our way to a trailer where they were serving Jack and Coke slushies, or Jack and lemonade slushies, depending on the color wrist band you purchased.  Doreen is pictured above with her Jack and lemonade.  

 

Jack Daniels is made like many other whiskeys, using charcoal to "mellow" the product.  Like George Dickel, they make their own charcoal by burning stacks (ricks) of two-by-two-inch (5 by 5 cm) sugar maple timbers. The timbers are primed with 140 proof (70% ABV) Jack Daniel's and then ignited under large hoods to prevent sparks.

The ricks ready to be moved to the burn facility

The resulting charcoal is ground to pea gravel size here, shown below

The tour took us by the entrance of the cave system.

In front of the cave is a statue of Jack (on the rocks!!)

Next stop was Jack Daniel's original office building.  The inside remains nearly like it was back in the day.  

Our next stop was the grain mill where the various grains are ground and mixed into the mash.  From here on they restricted pictures or the use of any electronic devices, due to the chances of explosion.  Of course my electronics/technical side kicked in and as we proceeded I took note of the lack of intrinsically-safe or explosion-proof products in their buildings.  But I complied with their no-picture rules!

In fact the next place we were allowed to take pictures was the barrel making display where we saw the tools they use and a video on the process.  They make all of their own barrels out of American white oak.  Like George Dickel, they only use their barrels once and then they are sold to other users such as Tequila, winemakers, beermakers, etc.  You can buy their barrels also.

  

From there we passed by the bottling facility, but they do not operate on the weekends.  

Our last stop before the tour ended was the tasting building.  

We sat in a room surrounded by barrels that were aging.  

They were dated 2013, so approximately 11 years old.  

So this is a recreated display of the Jack Daniels products we tasted in the same order as shown below, left to right.  After each taste we cleansed our palates with water provided. 

 

I asked about the significance of the "No. 7" which is their signature whiskey.  No one could tell me where that came from, except that it came from Jack Daniels himself.  I asked if the was a "No. 6" and no one knew, but not that they were aware!

After the tasting we exited through the bottle room where you could purchase any of their products, plus shirts, trinkets, etc.  Here are a few pictures.

Jack Daniels No. 7 with cinnamon added.  We did not get to sample this.

This was my purchase, which is not available anywhere but here from what they said. 

We enjoyed our tour and tasting but it was time to head back.  On the way we drove around the downtown Lynchburg area which is full of shops, restaurants and even a general store that sells Jack Daniels products.  You could easily spend a few hours walking around here and visiting the shops.

Later in the afternoon we drove through Arnold Air Force Base. The Commissary and Exchange were both closed, but we thought it would appropriate to see the base while we were here. 

This base has a unique mission, apparently. From their fact sheet, "The Arnold Engineering Development Complex operates more than 68 aerodynamic and propulsion wind tunnels, rocket and turbine engine test cells, environmental chambers, arc heaters, ballistic ranges, sled tracks, centrifuges and other specialized units."  So the normal things you would see on a normal Air Force Base are absent here.  They did have static displays coming in the gate, so a few pictures:

 Other than that, I did not think it would be appropriate to photograph anything inside the gate, but it was pretty awesome!  Humongous structures, piping, towers, etc.  But we saw no Airmen.  We saw no one at all except the gate guard.  We saw no vehicles driving around, and very few parked.  It was just really odd.  

Well, we took the longer way back to the FamCamp and that took us by some University of Tennessee facilities.  These facilities are surely related to the functions on the base.  But again, totally void of people, likely because it is summer and school is out right now.  

The area was far from void of life, though!  Doreen was calm and collected as we traversed this area, in fact she took the pictures.  A few years ago she would have been on the floor.  She had a very bad deer accident while driving our truck in 2011.  The deer hit the driver side mirror (at highway speed) and they both came through the driver's window striking her in the face.  This resulted in awful facial trauma, dental trauma and years of PTSD.  Proud of you, Nana!

That's it for today.  Tomorrow Liberty gets a hair cut so we will likely do lunch in town, get groceries and then come back and make preparations to depart here Tuesday morning.