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Jack Daniel's



Jack Daniels was everything that I expected and more. Knowing that this was the holy grail for whiskey tourists I decided to dive in and book one of the more expensive tastings. I did not regret it.

As expected, we had to park a decent walk away from the distillery itself. If this wasn’t the busiest stop we had on our tour, it was in the top three. We walked over, met some Pittsburghers, and
checked-in for a pre-booked tour. I happened to be early enough to catch the tour that was going out before mine so I hopped on.

The tour began with a short bus ride up a small hill to where the charcoal for the filtering process is burned. Jack Daniels uses a slightly different set-up so it was interesting to compare theirs to Dickel. We began walking down the hill as we heard about Jack Daniels history and their operations in the area. We continued the historical side of the tour with a stop at the original spring and Jack’s old office (where they were taking breaks from filming a commercial to let us walk through). Next it was on to the distillery where we got to see the Lincoln County Process up

close. Despite the tours full of people and the way the area is oriented to cater to tourists, I still felt like we got a good sense of the distillery itself.

The tasting was excellent. The glass enclosed rooms surrounded by dormant barrels provided a
beautiful setting. Jack Daniels, in my opinion, had the best tasting resource out of all the distilleries visited: Sheets with descriptions of each sample and room for us to write out own notes. This is what I was hoping for at each stop along the way. I just wish we would have had a little more time to savor each one.


We looked around the visitor center and gift shop afterwards. There are a few exclusive bottlings but most can be found elsewhere (and at a much lower price).
I highly recommend a walk around Lynchburg and lunch at Barrel House BBQ. They had great pulled pork and the best ribs I’ve ever eaten. 
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