140 proof PEOPLE

What distillery, in all the world, makes and sells the most hard liquor, in all the world?  Some of you may know this. Some of you may guess the answer.  And some will suppose it must be a Russian vodka, or Scot or Irish company.  But it is American, and it is one of the oldest US distillers as well. Good old Jack; Jack Daniels in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Whiskey factoid # 2: The ONLY Jack Daniels Distillery is Number One in Lynchburg, TN. And Lynchburg is the county seat of Moore Cty, and Moore County is DRY.  In fact, its been dry since 1909, ten years before the National Prohibition of alcohol across the US began. Tennessee went dry and its brewers and distillers went out of state to make their medicine.  When the US shut down legal manufacture of aged beverages Jack Daniels Company, unlike many of their competitiors, closed its doors but kept the property and waited out the dry weather.

  

Factoid #3: You can’t buy an open container of any alcohol in Moore County, or at the Distillery, today. They sell packaged bottles in their store in the town square, but no opening till you’re over the county line, and then, definitely not till you are home or behind motel room doors.

Fact #4: Did you know there really was a Jack?  Jack Daniels had run off from home at the age of six in the pre Civil War 1800’s. He ended up staying with a man named Dan Call, who, among other things, knew how to cook a smooth whiskey. Dan gave Jack the recipe at his death and by 1851 the Daniel’s name was on bottles in more and more places.  And Jack was only about 18.

#5: They say the secret to JD is the spring water, bubbling down through layers of hard limestone into an aquifer that still provides the JD company with 800 gallons a minute of pure, clear water right on their property about 3 small town blocks from the courthouse square in Lynchburg.

#6: Or it may be that they hand make all their own charcoal in their own special way so that the charcoal mellowing process, which can take weeks, is just RIGHT.

The several warehouses full of barreled and aging Jack each sit on a different hill scattered around the north end of town. Whiskey in any form is highly flammable. The Daniels Company only ever had one fire, at its St. Louis Distillery during World War 1, when Tennessee was dry but the US wasn’t.  They NEVER want another one.  The ignited fumes alone could take out, at today’s prices, a billion dollars worth of fine bourbon.  And those handmade charred oak barrels they age it in aren’t cheap either!

Lynchburg was on the way to Manchester, Tennessee, and that’s where our cousins Myra and Dave Kline live.

They are both air force retirees though they work quite hard yet.  Myra for the air force in contract writing and Dave for an east coast trucking company.  At the same time they are building a new home and farmette on 10 acres of land six miles from their current home which they have added onto and improved constantly over the past 22 years.

 

Dave can’t not be busy. Myra told us he hand carried over 36 loads of farm field stone to build the wonderful water pond feature in his back yard...

...and later wasn’t satisfied with an above grown pool and factory protective fence, so he built and designed  his own wrap-around deck and patio. 

Oh. And in his spare time he builds train layouts!

He’s been making add-ons since they moved here from the Homestead Florida Air base in 1992. They were one of many families that lost their home to Hurricane Andrew,  at the time the costliest storm in US history. Looks like they’ve made up for lost time.

Tomorrow we go to the Coffee County Fair to see the children’s clothing items Myra has made to compete there, and on Saturday we drive about an hour and a half away to their daughter Mary’s home to see her five girls and her husband, wouldn’t you know… a United Methodist Pastor.

Myra says we’re taking her Camaro.  She said tonight, “Ken, you drive.  The back seat is so small I don’t want you to have to sit back there.”  Mona about choked on her steak.  Me behind the wheel of a powerful Camaro?  I think she’d feel safer if the Kline’s were Amish and I’d have to steer a thoroughbred.

-Ken