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A Humbling Visit to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery, Lynchburg

jack daniels lynchburg barrel houseOne thing the guys instantly decided they wanted to do on our road trip was to visit the Jack Daniel’s Distillery, located roughly one and a half hours drive away from Nashville in a little town called Lynchburg, it is easily accessible by driving or booking onto an excursion tour. Now, while I am a fan of Jack Daniels, it is not my go-to drink ( I am a spiced rum kind of girl) but I was interested to see the home of one the world’s most famous beverages.  Now, if any of you have ever been to the various breweries across Europe, such as the Heineken tour in Amsterdam, this is what I was expecting, not too informative but good for a laugh,  but I was completely wrong. The Jack Daniel’s distillery tour is extremely informative and most importantly it is incredibly humbling.

What to expect on a visit to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery, Lynchburg

The first important fact to know is that every bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the world is made in the distillery in Lynchburg, this fact blew my mind. Jack Daniel’s is a globally known company under such high demand, for some reason I expected it to be produced worldwide, but no, every bottle is made in Lynchburg, Tennessee.
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On the approach into Lynchburg, you will notice the odd signpost or two point out the way, but other than that the distillery, despite being a major tourist attraction, blends in perfectly with its surroundings. Modest, humble with complete respect to the local community, not much of it has changed since the production of the Whiskey started in the very same spot in 1866.

We were invited to join the Angel’s share tour and was met by our tour guide Ben in the lobby, first off I have to say Ben was awesome, so much so I think the boys are planning on meeting up with him when he heads over to the UK later this year, he knew everything there is know about Jack Daniel’s and you could just tell how passionate he was about the brand as well.

As part of our tour we learnt all about the history of man behind Jack Daniel’s, from his early life and how this later formed his start of the company, as well the people that stood alongside Jack to make it the company it is today (many of Jack’s relatives still work in the distillery today).  We also learnt a large amount the process of making the famous Jack Daniel’s number 7 whiskey, a process that can take up to seven years to make a single barrel.

Now I won’t explain the whole process to you, one because it will never be anywhere near as good as Ben’s explanation and two because I highly recommend you visit the tour but for someone who does not have a massive interest in the alcohol brewing process I found it really interesting.

The tour also gives you an opportunity to see the mouth of the cave which holds the limestone spring water used in the production of the drink, as well the safe that eventually lead to the sad demise of  Mr Jack Daniel at the age of 65.
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As part of the Angel’s Share tour you also get taken into one of the sites barrelhouses, where inside you get the addition of a tasting tour, this includes Gentleman’s Jack as well as some limited edition whiskey’s such as No. 27 Gold, Single Barrel Select and Sinatra’s.

Oh, and next time you open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, you might really enjoy the taste of that particular bottle, if you look at the number located on the label of the bottleneck, that number directly correlates to the barrel it was made in, so if you find another with that same number, it will taste exactly the same. Pretty amazing right?

As I previously mentioned, when I have been to other brewery and distillery tours, they have often been quite commercialised, but our trip to Jack Daniel’s was completely different from this, every member of staff we met had a great knowledge of the business production and background, and more importantly had a strong sense of pride to be working for the Jack Daniel’s name. For a company that is known and loved globally, it was wonderfully humbling to see it has not affected the town of Lynchburg where it all began.

Find out more about the different tour available: https://store.jackdaniels.co.uk/

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A massive thank you to Ashley and Ben for hosting us during our trip to Lynchburg.