My nephew and I took a Saturday trip this past weekend to visit the Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The distillery is on the National Register of Historic Places. I had been there once, probably more than ten years ago, with my brother J. C. I had forgotten a lot of what I learned from my first visit.
Jack Daniel’s whiskey might just be the Tennessee version of the fine wines of California’s Napa Valley. Ironically the distillery is located in a dry county, but you can buy Jack Daniel’s whiskey at the distillery and participate in tastings. If you choose to buy the product on site, the price is not cheap. I learned that anyone can buy a barrel, and anyone who does gets their name placed on a plaque in the barrel house. A barrel of product will cost between ten and fifteen thousand dollars, depending upon the amount of evaporation and leakage. A healthy appetite for Jack Daniel’s whiskey will put a dent in any wallet.
I did learn from our personable tour guide that each employee gets a free bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the first payday of the month, a most interesting fringe benefit.
Even if you, like me, have no interest in drinking whiskey, the trip to the distillery is an enjoyable, educational experience. As our tour guide pointed out, visitors to the distillery really want to be there, as Lynchburg, Tennessee is “in the middle of nowhere”. It is about a three- and one-half hour drive from Maynardville. The tour and visit itself will most likely take a minimum hour and a half, depending on what you choose to do while there. Basically, two types of tours are available, tasting and non-tasting. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, if you are unable to physically visit Jack Daniel’s you can see and learn a lot from a Google search.
Three things stand out from my visit. First is the spring that provides the water for the whiskey making. I have never seen a more impressive water source. It would have fit right in with the seven wonders of the ancient world. I took some photos of the spring, and you can see pictures via a Google search; however, no picture can portray the magnificence and beauty of this natural wonder. Our guide told us that someone once entered the spring to see how far the cave extended, but it became so narrow after about a mile that further access was not possible. The clear water maintains a year-round constant temperature of 56 degrees. It is a major factor in the purity of the finished product, as the limestone filtering removes the impurities that would adversely affect the taste of the whiskey.
I was also impressed with the oldest structure on the property. A simple white frame building housed the original office of Jack Daniel’s enterprise. In this office is located the “killer safe”. It seems that one morning, according to our tour guide, Mr. Daniel went to work early, which was unusual for him. Mr. Daniel had trouble getting the safe open, so in frustration he gave it a tremendous kick. This resulted in a broken toe, which Mr. Daniel did not have treated by a doctor. Gangrene set in, and ultimately Mr. Daniel lost his leg to the hip. The moral of the story, according to our guide, is “don’t go to work early”.
I wonder how effective a doctor’s treatment would have been for Mr. Daniel, as he passed away in 1911, and the “discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) marked the beginning of the antibiotic revolution. Ernst Chain and Howard Florey purified the first penicillin, penicillin G, in 1942 but became widely available outside the Allied military in 1945. This marked the beginning of the antibiotic era.” (Adedeji WA. THE TREASURE CALLED ANTIBIOTICS. Ann Ib Postgrad Med. 2016 Dec;14(2):56-57. PMID: 28337088; PMCID: PMC5354621.) It would be interesting to conduct a search of earlier medical practices for prevention/treatment of gangrene and their effectiveness.
Both before and after the tour my nephew and I took the five-minute walk to the town center of Lynchburg, Tennessee. There were several quaint shops there that surrounded the Moore County Courthouse (also on the National Register of Historic Places), an impressive piece of architecture. People in Lynchburg are very friendly. There was one shop that had quite a bit of Confederate memorabilia. Most interesting to me were the photographs of Nathan Bedford Forrest and a comforter bed set with Confederate flag insignia. Amazingly, not one piece of Lincoln memorabilia could I find in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I had a conversation with the shop owner which focused in part on the darker side of Abraham Lincoln, how ruthless and tyrannical he was as a leader. The owner told me he knew a person who was so anti-Lincoln that he refused to have anything to do with five-dollar bills.
That reminded me of those who were so opposed to Andrew Jackson and his dealings with American natives (I believe that is the present “politically correct” term) that they would have nothing to do with twenty-dollar bills. It might indeed be hard to make change for a hundred-dollar bill with a person opposed to both Jackson and Lincoln! Good thing we have Benjamin Franklin, U. S. Grant, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to fall back on!
Dear Reader, I leave you with some (hopefully) interesting email tidbits for your amusement.

A policeman to a person pulled over for suspected DUI:

“Just how big were those ‘two beers’ you say you had?”

“The answer to this last question will determine
whether you are drunk or not.
Was Mickey Mouse a dog or cat?”

At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers.
A barmaid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming.
She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in pints
and who was drinking in quarts,
hence the phrase 'minding your Ps and Qs.'

No true son of the South would ever say:
“Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken with a slice of lime.”

I believe exercise makes you look better naked. But so does alcohol.
--Louisiana State Senator John Kennedy