Jack Daniel's and George Dickel Distilleries

We woke early after a quiet night and packed for our visits to Lynchburg, Tullahoma and the return trip home.  Mr. Patel was not at the Knight’s Inn registration desk so after waiting for 20 minutes, we left the keys on the nightstand and cleared out of the room.

The drive to Lynchburg was beautiful.  There were spots of heavy traffic but since we were leaving Nashville at 7 am, we avoided most of the congestion.  Traffic coming into the city was unbelievable.  Traffic coming into Nashville from the southeast on I-24 was backed up for nearly 10 miles and at a standstill.  We were happy to be leaving that traffic.

We arrived at the Jack Daniel’s Distillery at 8:30 so we had some time to look around before they opened at 9 am.  We scheduled a tasting tour ($10 each) at 9:30 and were pleased that we were with a small group of pleasant people from all over the US.  Our guide, Wes, was very knowledgeable and gave us an excellent tour of the facility that is the largest distillery that we have ever visited.  This facility makes millions of gallons of Tennessee sour mash whiskey.

starting with the yard where ricks of maple are burned to produce the charcoal that filters and mellows the whiskey before being aged. 

He took us to grain milling and mixing areas, and where the mash is prepared and allowed to ferment for 5 days.  When he uncovered the mash tubs and allowed us to smell the fermenting grain we were quite shocked.  At visits to other distilleries on the Bourbon Trail we smelled mash from open tubs and found it to be pleasing.  These giant stainless steel tubs were covered and when we opened the access ports the odor made us weak at the knees.  We continued on to the distillation area where huge continuous stills make millions of gallons of raw whiskey that is sent to a filtration area where it is passed through 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal before being put in a new white oak barrel for 4-7 years to become Jack Daniel’s Whiskey.  We went to the spring where pure water emerges from a cave in the limestone giving desirable characteristics to the resultant whiskey. 

We also went to the original office building where Jack Daniel and Lem Motlow ran the company since 1866.  We also saw the infamous safe that Jack Daniel kicked in anger that caused an infection leading to his death in 1911 at the age of 62.

The tour ended with a tasting and education on some of the primary products of Jack Daniel’s Distillery.  Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is their signature product.  Like all Jack Daniel’s products, it is a sour mash whiskey meaning that a little of the mash from a previous batch is put into the new mash to assure continuity and consistency.  Old No. 7 is charcoal filtered prior to barrel aging and is a mixture of many barrels throughout the huge rickhouses.  It is 40% alcohol (80 proof) and has a nice color.  We found it to be very inoffensive.  The charcoal filtration removes many potential sources of unpleasant flavors.  However, many unique characteristics of flavor and aroma were removed as well.  For someone who mixes whiskey, Jack Daniel’s would be a great choice since it is affordable and is not unpleasant as a straight sipping whiskey.

Next we tasted the Gentleman Jack which is the same as Old No. 7 except it has been charcoal filtered a second time following barrel aging.  The color is very light and the flavor is very weak.  Like Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack is very smooth and has no bite whatsoever.  It is priced above Old No. 7 but we found it to be bland and not really interesting.

The last offering we tried was the Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select.  For bourbon drinkers, this is the superior offering from jack Daniel’s by far.  This whiskey is made the same way as Old No. 7 but is stored on the top floor of the rickhouses where it ages to a dark color and robust flavor.  It is bottled at 94 proof and has a really nice warming feel in the mouth and throat.  There are pleasant vanilla and oak flavors that make this the best choice if you are considering a spirit from Jack Daniel’s.

We left Jack Daniel’s to walk into historic Lynchburg for lunch.  We ended up at the BBQ Caboose Café in town.  The walls were covered in photographs of celebrities who had dined there including a photo of the Sons of the San Joaquin over our booth.  We had met them at the California Mid-State Fair a number of years ago and loved the cowboy music so reminiscent of the Sons of the Pioneers.  Steve’s barbecue plate was excellent as was the barbecue pizza that Mary & Emily shared.  The café owner, Ken Fly came over to visit with us as he does with all visitors to his restaurant.  He told us that his mother was from Huntington, WV and that he always liked the city. The restaurant was doing a good business for a Wednesday in May.

From Lynchburg, we made the short drive to Tullahoma, TN, actually Cascade Hollow to the George Dickel Distillery.  The road to the Dickel facility is narrow and winding but isn’t far from the town of Tullahoma which has a surprising number of residents.  The compared to the massive facility and production at jack Daniel’s, George Dickel is tiny.  While Jack Daniel’s Distillery has nearly 400 employees at their Lynchburg operations, Dickel has a staff of only about 25.

Like Jack Daniel’s, the whisky from George Dickel is a sour mash type of whisky that is charcoal filtered before barrel again.  Unlike Daniel’s, Dickel chills the white whisky before filtering.  They believe that the undesirable elements are better removed from the liquid by the charcoal if they are cold.

Our tour group was very small but the guide, Cathy, gave us a walk around the facility and a lot of information about the whisky and how it is made.  They were not offering any tasting tours at the time we arrived so we were unable to make first had comparisons of the various Dickel products.  Their 80 proof George Dickel No. 8 and the 90 proof No. 12 get very favorable reviews and are often cited as good value bourbons at less than $15 for a fifth.  Their premium sour mash whiskey is the 86 proof George Dickel Barrel Select that compares well with drinks at three times the price.

By the time we finished our tour at George Dickel, we were ready to start home after a great time in Nashville.  The GPS took us north on US 231 which is a pretty two lane highways through Tennessee until we got to the Martha Lane Collins Bluegrass Parkway at Cave City, Kentucky.

After the large lunch in Lynchburg, we weren’t terribly hungry for dinner so we stopped at the world’s slowest McDonalds which is in Bardstown, Kentucky.  We have stopped there before and have had terrible service in the past but we don’t travel through the area often enough to remember to not stop here.  We had a simple order of four chicken snack wraps and a chicken salad that took over 25 minutes to fill.  When we got the order, they gave us only two chicken snack wraps so we waited another 10 minutes for the balance of the order.  Hopefully, we will remember to stop somewhere else in the future.  We really like Bardstown but we won’t return to the McDonalds.

We dropped Emily off at her apartment around 9 pm then continued on home arriving after 11:30 pm, tired but pleased to have had a great visit to Nashville and central Tennessee.

Photos will be added to this blog entry soon.

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