Anyone who has looked at their dramatic black and white logo knows Jack Daniels Distillery is in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Who the hell though really knows where Lynchburg is? The tiny town is far enough from Nashville that I had to break one cardinal rule of travel - We left too early for breakfast.
So for nearly two hours I had to listen to my bear complaining that he could have been “doing grits” with “Antonio,” a gorgeous gay waiter who I believe is a fantasy of Wro‘s. I was regretting the trip, until we got there.
Lynchburg is a delightful little burg whose soul reason for being is to welcome the pilgrims to Jack Daniels. The whiskey distillery is set in hills so tall you can see Alabama. Every Fall, this is the final stop on the competition BBQ circuit. So it’s a holy cathedral to devotees of the American food culture.
Our tour guide was marvelously named Morgan Stillman. He told us he as a former farmer and dedicated whiskey drinker.
“You got to have whiskey in a small town cuz that’s all we got to make the time go by,” he explained.
Ironically, Lynchburg is in a dry county, liquor has not been legal here since 1909, and yet, all kinds of concessions have to be made because of the economic impact of the distillery.
Morgan reminds us, “This place pays $13 million a year in federal taxes, let alone other taxes,” as we watch charcoal being made in a huge bon fire of stacked maple logs. The fire was started fire with 140 proof whiskey which elicited a few EPA jokes from our docent.
Morgan shows us: a 1919 fire engine, “We got modern equipment, but we ain’t used it;”
And the house that Jack built, “They must a been pretty lit when they built it cuz it leans to the left pretty bad.”
Jack Daniels was a 61 year old bachelor when he died. Jess Motlow and his sons then took the company to international prominence. All together, there have only been six master distillers, and all came from within 6 miles of the distillery, all but two from within 2 miles.
Morgan tells us that since it’s the first Friday of the month, all employees get free whiskey.
Tip: Every Friday, between May 1 and October 1, the distillery hosts a mountain top BBQ, with hickory smoked pork shoulder, chicken and all the usual trappings of Q, including live music. The pavilion is a huge open air venue with unbelievable views. The Q is pretty darn good too, so good in fact that we talked them into sharing a few recipes from the “little lunch” we had there.
While celebrating the joys of pig butt, Wro asked Morgan:
“Why is the whiskey called Old # 7?”
“My theory is it was probably the maximum number of girl friends Jack kept at any one time.”
After lunch we watched the six day fermentation process, in 40,000 gallons stills. We visited the barrel aging room, “where whiskey gets its color, not flavor.”
“Each barrel pays $13.50 in federal tax,” we heard, surmising that Morgan doesn’t much care for taxes.
After fermentation, the grain mash is recycled to local cattle. “The cows are famously happy in these parts. Keeps ‘em from kickin’,” Morgan explained.
Finally we saw the mellowing room where the whiskey is filtered, through the charcoal we saw being made earlier. In the case of Gentleman Jack, it is twice filtered.
“The difference between bourbon and Tennessee whiskey is filtering in charcoal.”
A British tour group was excited to hear that master distiller Jimmy Bedford had been sited on the property, They were told that his autograph on a Gentleman Jack or single barrel bottle was worth $400 on E Bay. It’s legal to buy whiskey here, just not to drink it in public, I think.
Single barrels are for sale, too, 53 gallons for $9,000. “Only $7,500 in states without so many taxes,“ Morgan reminded us.
We were told that George Strait had just been here to pick out his annual barrel for aging. Suddenly, Wro was no longer interested in Jimmy Bedford, he started pining for “a Texas baritone.” Mommi settled for a bottle of Gentleman Jack with Mr. Bedford’s autograph. She has no intention of selling it on E Bay.
As soon as the long drive to Nashville was over, I tried to calm Wro down with some shopping. We bought some music from the huge selection at the Hall of Fame, which you will recall is across the street from our hotel. He wanted clothes though, so we stopped in the funky Hillsboro neighborhood near Vanderbilt. I had to give him two espressos before he stopped growling about “the dearth of gay boutiques.”
Late Night with Chicken Royalty
Among food culture junkies, Nashville is known as THE hot chicken town. This is the only place I ever heard of where “hot chicken” has its own separate category in the newspaper restaurant listings! And one chicken place is part of southern lore.
When Colonel Sanders started his chicken business in the neighboring state, Prince’s Chicken Shack had already been serving Nashville for a three decades. Their chicken is still skillet fried, in a rather small kitchen, so orders take at least half an hour, and sometimes a lot longer. While Wro and I waited, near midnight, other people would joke about taking orders that weren’t their’s.
“Number 83, is number 83 here?”
“What he got?”
We sat down and waited with newlyweds Erica and Zach Marable. Erica grew up in the neighborhood, Zach in Murfreesboro, where they met and now live.
“She made me bring her to Prince’s on our second date. Since she got pregnant, she has been having a craving for Princes a lot more often though,” Zach explained why they drove an hour each way to wait another hour for their fix.
Andre Prince is the current matriarch of the Shack. She explained to us that all her chicken is spicy to some people, so maybe “mild” is all the hotter we want to order it. I go for mild, Wro gets “hot,” but at least not “extra hot.”
Erica tells us she grew up on mild, but since she got pregnant, her addiction has progressed.
“I used to always eat mild, then medium, but now I am up to hot, and I think the baby might be an extra hot,” Erica said.
“Last week, it hit her at 11 p.m., we didn’t get home from the chicken run till after 1:30 in the morning,” Zach added.
“I crave it,” Erica confessed. “I just think it’s something that everyone needs to experience.”
Andre Prince was busy counting money. It was the middle of a shift change, and some employees needed to get paid and cash their checks too. So things were a bit slower than usual. No one seemed to mind. When she finished, she acted amazed that anyone would want to take her picture. Even more amazed that anyone would come from as far as San Francisco just to eat her skillet fried chicken.
“You came from where? My goodness.”
Our orders came just as another shift of workers and customers filed in, so Wro and I bid Andre, Erica and Zach good bye and took our chicken back to the hotel. Andre was right, mild was as hot as I wanted it. Wro claimed that he should have gone hotter.
“Radney Foster was hotter than this, and he wasn‘t as hot as Vince Gill,” he explained, assuring me that his lasting memory of Nashville was not going to be anything historical, culinary or educational.
Recipes
Jack Daniel's Three Bean Baked Beans
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped (optional)
1 can (15 oz.) northern white beans
drained
1 can (15 oz.) pork & beans, do not drain
1 can (15 oz.) kidney beans, drained
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Rare Tennessee Whiskey
1/2 cup Jack Daniel's Tennessee Hickory BBQ Sauce
1 Tbs. spicy brown mustard
1/4 pound Pork BBQ, chopped
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a two quart casserole dish. Combine all ingredients. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until bubbly.
Jack Daniel's Honey Butter
(Wro consumed “a fifth” of this the day we visited Lynchburg)
Ingredients
1 pound room temperature unsalted butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Rare Tennessee Whiskey
1 tsp lemon zest
Combine all ingredients and blend well. Store in refrigerator for up to two days.
Sour Cream Corn Bread
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups canned creamed corn
1 1/2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups self rising corn meal, lightly packed
3/4 t salt
1/2 t baking powder
3 T melted butter
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place iron skillet in oven and leave to heat until mix is prepared. Combine first 7 ingredients in the order shown. Blend well. Remove skillet from oven and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Pour in batter. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes. Remove from oven and brush top with melted butter. Serve warm with Honey Butter.
Wro Recommends:
Nashville Hilton Downtown
121 4th Avenue
Nashville, TN 37201
615-620-1000
Prince Chicken Shack
123 Ewing DrNashville, TN 37207-2960
(615) 226-9442
Jack Daniels BBQ Hill
POB 199, Lynchburg, TN 37352
931-759-6357 (call by noon on the Thursday you wish to visit that Friday) http://www.jackdaniels.com/
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