9/30 Jack Daniel's, MIss Mary Bobo's and Moon Pies

John found a friend on the next dock over this morning.  Look at the close up he got of this heron.

 

We rented a car and headed across state lines to Lynchburg, TN.  The drive was very scenic at the foothills of Smokey Mountains.  There were ranches with cattle and horses and fields of cotton ready to harvest.  We arrived in downtown Lynchburg.  Like a John Grisham novel, the courthouse is in the center of town. 

We made our way to the Moon Pie store.  They didn't give out free samples but we did buy a box of a dozen. 

For lunch, we had reservations at Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House.  Miss Mary ran the boarding house in town for many decades.  She died at over 100.  The Boarding House is owned by the Distillery now.  There are two lunch seatings.  The boarding rooms have each been set up with a family sized dining room table.  Each room has a hostess.  She welcomes you all to the table.  The food is served family style.  The servers are college students who have a scholarship from Jack Daniels.  Lunch was ice tea, pork tenderloin, cheese grits, potatoes, fried chicken, coleslaw, fried okra, green beans with bacon, apples with a Jack Daniels sauce, rolls, and custard pie for dessert.  It was very good.  Our hostess made the whole table feel welcome.

Then we headed over to the Jack Daniel's Distillery for our tour and tasting. 

The tour was very interesting.  On our way into Lynchburg, we saw many huge odd shaped buildings with moats around them.  As it turns out, there are so many barrels that these buildings are all filled with barrels aging the whiskey.

The tour took us through Jack Daniel's office.  We saw the cave where the water that makes all the whiskey comes from.  The surrounding limestone has no iron in it.  The water seems to make a big difference in the whiskey.

The whiskey is dripped through charcoal.  Jack Daniel's makes its own charcoal.  This is where they make the charcoal.  The wood to make the charcoal is locally sourced sugar maple.  It is stacked specially to allow for the correct temperature to make the charcoal.

The wood for the barrels is locally sourced oak staves.  The barrels are made and burnt onsite too.  The vats where they make the whiskey are huge but no photos are allowed in that area.  John and I did have our picture taken with Jack.

So much is flammable that they have their own fire department.  Here is one of the early 1900's vintage fire trucks.

At the end of the tour, we enjoyed the whiskey tasting.  It was a flight of 5 whiskeys. We bought a bottle of Gentleman Jack and had it etched to commemorate our trip.  

On the tour, we also saw some wild turkeys on the grounds.  No, they do not make Wild Turkey whiskey there.

Tomorrow, we tour the Marshall Space Flight Center.