ShareThisBy LINDA LANGE
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
"Every drop of whiskey you see in this world that has 'Jack Daniel' on it comes from right here in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and nowhere else," declares William Conn.
He's leading a tour at Jack Daniel Distillery, the oldest registered whiskey distillery in the United States. "We are Tennessee sour mash whiskey. I call it sour mash sippin' whiskey. That's what I do for the first couple of drinks. After that, I have to guzzle it a little bit."
The Jack Daniel Distillery sits in the gently rolling hills of Tennessee Walking Horse country. Spring-fed creeks lace the green pastures and forests. The distillery makes good use of the pure water and the locally grown corn and grains. More than 10 million 9-liter cases of Jack Daniel's whiskey were sold in the last year. This monumental production occurs in officially "dry" Moore County.
Conn disperses jokes in a rich Tennessee twang and easily entertains visitors on this blue-sky afternoon. He tells us that distillery employees get the metric equivalent of 12 pints a year for free. Bottles are dispensed the first Friday of every month. "We call it 'good Friday.' That's the only day of the month that nobody stays home."
We gather around Conn at the rickyard where cords of hard sugar maple wood are burned to make charcoal for the mellowing process. Charcoal-mellowing is an extra step in production that differentiates Tennessee whiskey from others. Once we reach the Cave Spring, Conn tells why Jack Daniel came here: Water is relatively free of iron because it has seeped through layers of limestone. We amble down to the original office, a modest building with wooden benches on the front porch. As impossible as it seems, the distillery was run from this small space until 1952, when a larger facility was built.
Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel learned the distiller's trade from Dan Call, a Lutheran minister and whiskey-maker. He bought the distillery from Call and moved the little business to this site. In 1866, at a time when the federal government began its regulation and taxation of whiskey, the Tennessean was the first to register his distillery. He was also the first to put whiskey in square bottles. The little-known distiller caught global attention at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and Centennial Exposition. He entered his sipping whiskey into an international competition and brought home the World's Fair Gold Medal for the best whiskey in the world.
His office looks as if he had just stepped outside for a minute. Old photographs, potbellied stove, gooseneck lamp and safe are still in place. After "Mr. Jack" died in 1911, the distillery passed down to his nephew, Lem Motlow, whose portrait also hangs on the wall.
Distillation is still the same as it was in the early days. Spring water goes through a complex process to gain the sweet, spicy, woody, caramel, slightly smoky flavor of whiskey. It mixes with corn, rye and barley malt to form a fermented mixture called mash. At our next tour stop, we poke our faces into huge tanks and inhale the pungent aroma of the bubbly mash.
The smells sweeten at the charcoal-mellowing vats and stills. The stills flow with 140-proof whiskey. Right after distillation, it trickles through 10 feet of charcoal. Drop by drop, it acquires a smooth, mellow character. We seem to get a little lightheaded and ask extra questions to delay our exit into the sunshine and fresh air.
Before we enter the adjacent warehouse, Conn points to a gray warehouse up on the hill. "That warehouse holds 20,160 barrels of whiskey. Each barrel has about 63 gallons. We got 70 of those (warehouses). That's over 70 million gallons of whiskey in a dry county."
After the charcoal-mellowing process, the whiskey is poured into charred white-oak barrels to mature. Inside the dark room, rows of barrels fill every inch of available space. Production dates are stenciled on staves. Barrels from the same production day are scattered throughout all warehouses. "That way if we have a fire or a catastrophe of some kind, we won't lose a whole day's production at the same time. Of course, if a tornado hits one of them big warehouses, it would rain whiskey all over Lynchburg. It wouldn't be a dry county anymore," he says jokingly.
Once tasters determine that the whiskey has reached peak maturity, it is ready to be bottled. Conn ushers us into the bottling plant, where glass bottles are filled, labeled and packaged on fast-moving assembly lines. The distillery makes Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey, Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey and Jack's Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey. Old No. 7 is the nation's best-selling premium distilled spirit brand. Jack Daniel whiskey is sold in more than 130 countries. "The UK is our No. 1 seller overseas. California is No. 1 in the States," says Conn.
By now, people want to buy their own supply. Connoisseurs can place an order for an entire barrel by handing over about $9,000. The barrel's 94-proof, dark amber whiskey fills about 220 decanter-style bottles. Flavors vary from barrel to barrel. Master distiller Jimmy Bedford and a team of tasters select the whiskey when it reaches its peak maturity.
For just a single bottle, Conn directs visitors to the White Rabbit Saloon, a hospitality room constructed to look like the watering hole Mr. Jack operated in Lynchburg before the advent of Prohibition. Water and lemonade are free for the taking. Those wanting stronger stuff go to the White Rabbit Bottle Shop, where whiskey is sold in specially designed decanters and commemorative bottles. "We sell it as a souvenir. What you do with it when you leave is none of our business," he says.
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Free tours of Jack Daniel Distillery are given 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily (except on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day). For more information: 931-759-6183 or 931-759-6180, www.jackdaniels.com.
