We decided to visit the Jack Daniel’s Distillery firstly because my husband is mad about the stuff, and secondly it was part of our mini road/fly trip of America. More about that in another post.

Lynchburg, TN

The distillery is in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Lynchburg is a very small town, so getting here meant we had to fly to Nashville TN. We then hired a car and drove the 70 miles to Lynchburg.

Lynchburg is in Moore County, which is still a dry county from the prohibition era from 1920. Which forbids the sale of alcohol! Which is crazy as Jack Daniels is made here. So all the stores in Lynchburg just sell merchandise and collectable bottles which are of course empty.

The day we arrived there was a bike rally in town and the whole place was filled with motorbikes. Which made wandering around this beautiful historic town even more fun. It was great looking at the stores and all the bikes that had turned up.

“What no where to eat!”

We found out that evening how small this town was, when enquiring about where to have dinner, the response was “everything closes about 6pm” So we drove to the nearest town to have dinner. This just shows the quaintness of this gorgeous town.

The Distillery

The following day was our tour of the Distillery itself. Since going I’ve now found out that there are a few different tours to select.

Our tour took a couple of hours and they showed us around parts of the distillery but we weren’t allowed to take any photos inside. It was really interesting learning all about the history.

A bit of History

Jack Daniel started making whiskey in 1866, so they have just celebrated 150 years. He made the first whiskey with water he found in the nearby spring. (In the picture Jack is standing in front of the original spring)
We got shown how the whiskey is made and bottled. What’s interesting is that all the barrels are still handmade to this day!

The whiskey gets stored for numerous years until it passes the taste test. The Master distillers are the ones who taste test the whiskey and decide if its ready of sale or needs a bit longer. The barrels that taste exceptional gets bottled individually and sold as the “Single Barrel”.

Over the years there has been 6 more Master distillers after jack himself.
The tour was very informative and you could have a taste of the Jack Daniel’s whiskey at the end.

Where to stay

There are very few places to stay in Lynchburg. Mostly B&B’s, so booking early is a must. We were fortunate to book the Tolley House B&B, built in the mid 19th century. This gorgeous home was once lived in by Lem Motlow, the 2nd master distiller of Jack Daniels.

The Tolley house was then owned by the daughter of Frank Bobo who was the 5th Master Distiller. The house was beautiful, inside and out and the owners were so friendly. We got served traditional breakfast each morning and the day we had to leave early we found a packed up breakfast waiting for us on the doorstep.
So we drove back to Nashville and boarded the plane towards our next stop…