We left around 10:30 thinking we would have ample time to get there, eat lunch, and then go reserve our spot for the 2:30 tour. We arrived around 12:30 and decided to go purchase our tickets before lunch...and it's a good thing we did. There were only 3 spots left for the 2:30 tour! It is obviously a popular thing to do on a Friday afternoon. After reserving our spots we headed to the town square to grab a bite to eat for lunch.
We were in the mood for BBQ so we ate at the Bar-B-Que Caboose Cafe.
The food was pretty tasty!
After we ate we wandered around the town square for a bit. Britt and I both love old towns that are still alive and functioning! Pictures really can't capture the beauty of a small town's downtown, but I still gave it a shot--
A side of the square
The Frontier Days Festival was going on in the square.
I'm a sucker for old court houses!
I'm pretty sure that every store in the square had Jack Daniel's souvenirs...this was certainly not the only one!
The Lynchburg Hardware and General Store front-really the official Jack Daniel's "gift shop"...LOVE.
Jack Daniel's Gift Shop, we found some fun cups and a Christmas ornament in here!
Probably an "antique" store...I just liked its name--Cow Patties!
You can barely see it, but some old man told us that the house on the hill was Jack Daniel's home. He also told us it's for sale. And that it costs $650 million...he may have had a bit too much Jack to drink...
It was HOT, so we grabbed a sweet treat for the walk back to the distillery.
The tour lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. It was really fun and very educational. We learned a lot about how Jack Daniel's whiskey is made. We also learned things about Jack Daniel's life that we did not know prior to the tour. For instance, I learned that you can buy an entire barrel of Jack for a nominal fee of $9,000-$12,000...not too bad, ha!
These are called rickets...it is the wood that makes the charcoal that the whiskey runs through when being made.
This is the cool spring where they get the water to make the whiskey...it is a constant 56 degrees in temp. They do not know how far back the cave goes; the farthest a crew got was 1 mile back before the space became too small to pass through.
Statue of Mr. Jack himself. This statue depicts him as being 5'7'', but he was actually only 5'2" and wore a size 4 shoe.
One of the buildings of the distillery
Not sure if you can tell, but this tree has very black colored bark. The black color comes from the trees being located near the distillery. In prohibition days the law looked for trees with this black coloring to find distilleries.
More of the distillery.
What used to be the Jack Daniel's Whiskey headquarters.
This safe inadvertently caused Jack Daniel's death. Long story short, he couldn't open it one morning so he kicked it. It broke his toe which had to be amputated due to infection...that lead to infection in his foot (it had to amputated), then infection got in his leg, you guessed it, it had to be amputated too...then the infection got in his body and he passed away. That whole process took 6 years!
The Fire Brigade
Our tour guide telling us about this old fire truck...
...it's an REO Speed Wagon. It's cool because this is brand that inspired the band REO Speedwagon's name and logo!
One of the Barrel Houses on the grounds...this one only holds 6,059 barrels of whisky. The other one holds over 20, 000.
Tasting Jack Daniel's No. 7--I really don't like straight whiskey. I gave Gentleman's Jack a try too, but passed up on the Single Barrel Whiskey. Britt, of course, liked all three!
Us in the "tasting room"
World's largest bottle of Jack...it's bigger than me!
The original bar...
This is for Granddaddy!
Our personalized bottle of Gentleman's Jack!
Me outside the visitor's center
A nice man volunteered to take our picture!
Before we left we stopped and got some Jack Daniel's Whiskey fudge and a Diet Coke for the car ride home. It was a great choice!
After the tour we were extremely exhausted from a day full being on the go, but fun was had by all!
Until next time...
-j and b
