Manchester!(Tennessee) and Jack Daniels, Lynchburg

I left Nashville this morning and took the road south out of town towards the Lynchburg and the Jack Daniels Distillery. Just of the Interstate I booked into a cheap motel room in Manchester of all places (although nothing like back home!) I then too the local road out to Lynchburg, the home of the Jack Daniels Distillery. The tour here is free and you start in a large Visitors Centre where you watch a film about the history of the place. Then you a led out a side door onto a 'Tour Bus' which takes you all of 500yds up the road though the grounds. The first stop is the old on site fire station where they have an old REO Speedwagon Fire Truck (yes, the rock group did base their name on a truck of this type) Next to the fire house we were told about the wood which is used to fire the distillery and also to make the charcoal which is used to filter the whiskey later in the process. From here we walked down to the old building which was originally used by Mr Jack Daniels as his office and there we were given a guided tour of the some of the artefacts in there. Next was the spring water source from which the pure water is drawn for the whiskey to this day, next to which is a supposedly life-size statue of Jack Daniels on a rock; so you can pose with him 'on-the-rocks' from here we went into first the distilling tanks and were able to get a heady wiff of the brewing liquor then to the filter sheds where the liquor is filtered through huge 3 story charcoal filtration beds. The tour guide lifted the lids on these beds to allow us to get a good sniff of the filtering whiskey which was certainly heady at this point but with little character. From here the liquor is decanted into oak barrels which are had made still on site and then taken to one of a number of storage sheds to be laid down to mature. Each consecutive barrel is taken to a different shed to ensure that should a shed be destroyed then the whole of this batch of whiskey would not be lost. Barrels are then placed in the storage sheds for a number of years to allow them to mature. Depending on the level in the shed the barrel is stored will affect the colour and taste of the whiskey. Those higher up the the shed will be subject to more heat extremes of warmth and cold. This allows the whiskey to seep in and out of the charred oak barrel which in turn adds to the colour and texture of the whiskey. So a barrel which is lower down the storage shed won' t get as smooth a flavour and is actually sold as a 'Green Label' Jack Daniels and is slightly harsher in taste than the standard Black Label, because of the limited number of these it is only normally available in Tennessee. Next was the single barrel bottling room where bottles are filled and packed on a batch process by hand from a single barrel at a time. You can come to the Distillery and purchase a whole barrel and have your own specially numbered and marked bottles made up. There is a 'Hall of Fame' here for people and groups which have done this. At the end of the tour we ended up back at the Visitors Centre where you get to sample... lemonade!!! Ironically the county in which Lynchburg is situated is a 'dry' county so they can't allow you to try the stuff!. They do have a shop where you can purchase a number of the speciality brands and limited edition versions of Jack Daniels in the corner of the visitor centre, however with the cheapest bottle being over 40 pounds a go I declined. Apparently this is the only liquor outlet in the whole county, you have to go about 10miles out to be able to buy the stuff normally! From the visitor centre I took a short drive down the road to the village/town of Lynchburg which is a sleepy little square of touristy shops around a 'city hall' The old hardware store has been converted into an olde tyme store selling everything and anything you can think of connected to Jack Daniels but the actual stuff itself.