Decided enroute to Bristol, VA/TN that it would be fun to visit the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee . A quick reference to the AAA guide to Kentucky and TN showed that it was located in Lynchburg, TN. That was about 4 hours away, so we should be able to make it in time before the guided tours closed at 430pm.

Managed to find the JD distillery without too much difficulty, although I did miss the exit at Crossville and had to instead make the turn at Cookeville instead — probably took us about 15-30 mins longer. The population of Lynchburg is 361, which pretty much revolves around the distillery and the gift shops that sell JD souvenirs, although no JD is actually sold here because it is a dry county. Ironic huh.

The tour was actually really interesting. The guide pretty much brought us through all the stages of distilling JD. We got to see the stills, bottling, and ageing areas, and lots of free smells in the process (although there was no free whiskey to be had). There was this particular building where the whiskey was filtered through maple charcoal to remove the taste/smell of yeast and barley –> the guide lifted a little of the lid and let us smell the whiskey. Man, free air is overrated compared to the smell of raw whiskey.

Tonight would be spent at another Super 8 Motel, this time in Pulaski. The manager at the motel suggested that we not venture into any bar or club unless we were armed with a gun and 2 knives. I assumed this meant each, and even though Randall’s from Arkansas, he doesn’t have a rifle in the boot of his Le Sabre. 🙂

There was a nice cozy [sorry if these adjectives are repeated too often, but well, this is the South] restaurant next to the motel, which served typical southern food. We had the sampler platter – deep fried cheese sticks, jalapeno, stuffed jalapeno, mushrooms, pickles – and the seafood platter –> deep fried fish, oysters, shrimp, scallops, and hushpuppies (deep fried cornbread in balls). The baked potato was great… totally fluffy with whipped butter and sour cream.