We had gotten used to there being rain several times that we were at Buffalo Trace Park but had been fairly spoiled by the mild temperatures. We knew it was supposed to cool off considerably overnight and expected a few snow flurries on Saturday morning before our drive to Tennessee. We did NOT expect it to snow steadily all morning and for snow to accumulate on the ground and the roads and our vehicles as we were trying to load up and get on the road to our next stop. Between fighting the weather outside, our inexperience with moving and our fear of repeating the mess of our last trip, and attempting to catch 7 terrified cats (Angel was scratched, bitten, and peed on) we were a little late getting on the road. The drive from Palmyra, Indiana to our next stop in Wartrace, Tennessee was supposed to take about 4 hours but with gas stops, pee breaks for the dog, and the slow going due to the snowy weather it took a bit longer – but we made it safely (just as it was starting to get dark) and were ready for our next adventure.
Thankfully, in Wartrace, it hadn’t been cold enough for the snow to stick but it had been raining/snowing all day and the ground was a muddy mess. This new spot was at a private residence that sat on 11 acres out in the middle of nowhere among the beautiful hills of Tennessee. The house sat at the top of a hill down a long, winding gravel driveway. Our spot was about halfway down the drive in a field next to a large pole barn. The barn was being turned into a dog rescue and we were there to help them in exchange for a free camping site. John had found this rescue, Better Days Dog Rescue, on TikTok and had volunteered to come and help them put up a fence on the site.
Our first night there we were once again too tired to get things set up to cook (and it was literally freezing outside and took a long while to warm up our house) so we decided to drive into nearby Shelbyville for dinner. We were delighted by all of the new food options but we were tired and hungry (we are usually too busy/nervous to eat on moving days so we hadn’t eaten anything all day) so we just ran through the drive-thru at Bojangles. During our two week stay we also got to try Highway 55, Way Back Burger, and Krystal for various meals and Angel got to shop at a Piggly Wiggly.
On Sunday morning (November 13) we drove into Shelbyville again for breakfast and tried Huddle House for the first time. Angel immediately fell in love and we ate there several more times during our two weeks in the area. For those unfamiliar, Huddle House is very much like Waffle House (serves breakfast 24 hours a day but also has offerings for lunch and dinner, decently priced and dependable food). Angel can eat breakfast foods for every meal and was delighted by the MVP – eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, and a waffle. After breakfast we did some shopping for groceries and a few things at Lowes that we needed for the house and ended up buying Harley a winter coat as the weather was so much colder than we were anticipating and her arthritis had been acting up. We drove around Shelbyville to get our bearings on our new surroundings and then headed home for a quiet night in watching movies and eating Chinese and Thai food from Mai House.
We spent a lot of the week just doing normal, domestic things. John worked during the day while Angel fought the never-ending battle against the mud and straw and leaves tracked into the house, bought groceries and made trips to the laundromat. We also thoroughly enjoyed just being able to open the front door and let Harley run in the fields. She sniffed every inch of those fields and protected us from so many deer. It turns out that there were American Kestrels nesting in the barn and they apparently DID NOT get approval from Harley to be there. She ran into the barn one evening and was running in circles barking frantically. We ran in to see what in the absolute hell was going on and found her chasing the birds around the entire barn and barking like a maniac. The birds were safely flying around 20 feet over her head but somehow our overweight and arthritic dog with her short stubby legs thought that she was going to catch herself a bird. I guess she was anticipating the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
Our first big adventure was on November 18th. John took a half day from work and we drove to nearby Lynchburg, Tennessee – the home of Jack Daniels. All Jack Daniels products available around the entire world are made at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg and it is quite obvious that Lynchburg is a company town. Prior to our tour at the distillery, we had made lunch reservations at Miss Mary Bobo’s for a classic southern meal.
Miss Mary Bobo’s is a beautiful, sprawling home that used to be a boarding house and is now a family-style restaurant serving up some of the best food imaginable. Because the meal is family-style, meals are only served at certain times and, while walk-ins may be accommodated, reservations are highly recommended. The rooms that once served as bedrooms and parlors in this beautiful home are now dining rooms with one table in each surrounded by chairs. When you arrive and check in with the hostess, you are given a card with the name of your dining room on it. At meal time, the dinner bell rings and diners are called in by table. A host or hostess employed by the restaurant meets you at the hostess stand, leads your group to the dining room, and joins you for your meal. Because each dining room holds several people, unless you have a large group there is a good chance that you will end up seated around the large, wooden table with complete strangers. The host or hostess is there to act as a guide, provide information about the building and the surrounding area, and keep the conversation flowing at the table to prevent any awkwardness. At first it may sound a bit strange but by the end of the meal, it really felt like sitting down to a meal with good friends.
The meal is brought in on large platters and placed on the table, which has a built-in lazy Susan, by servers who are all college kids working there as part of a program sponsored by Jack Daniels. Diners are not able to request items from a menu – everyone in the entire building for that meal time is served the same items (when you arrive for your visit there is a sign out front with the daily menu posted on it). Diners simply take what they want from the platters on the table and then turn the lazy Susan until each diner has had the opportunity to take what they want from every dish. If a dish is emptied (and this happened several times because the food was just soooo good), a server will bring more of whatever item is needed and will also provide drink refills during the course of the meal. On the day of our visit, the menu consisted of meat loaf, fried chicken, fried okra, coleslaw, stewed tomato casserole, corn bread, beans, collard greens, Lynchburg Candied Apples (made with Jack Daniels whiskey), and fudge pie for dessert. Drinks were water, sweet tea, and coffee. Everything was absolutely amazing. Neither of us had ever had stewed tomato casserole but it ended up being one of our favorite dishes of the meal. The fried okra was the best we have ever had and we each ate 3 pieces of chicken.
Other guests at are table included 2 older couples that were from elsewhere in Tennessee and were in-laws of each other, and another middle-aged couple from Georgia who were showing around their college student niece who was visiting from South America, and our hostess. Although they were absolute strangers, we laughed and joked and shared stories like we had all known each other for years. After the meal we ran into the older four members of our group at one of the shops in town and stopped to chat again then, too.
Miss Mary Bobo’s is located just off of the main square in Lynchburg and we had about an hour to kill before our reserved time for the distillery tour so we wandered around town, visiting several small businesses selling Jack Daniels merchandise (no alcohol though because Lynchburg is located in a dry county!!!!!) and other items like clothing, candy, leather items, and baked goods. One of the stores is actually the official gift shop of the distillery and were selling the used whiskey barrels and other souvenirs for very reasonable prices. We also walked around the old town hall building but unfortunately arrived at the historic jail just as it was closing.
The Jack Daniels Distillery is also just a short walk from the town square and is settled on a beautiful hillside. The visitor’s center is a gorgeous building where guests check in for tours and get to see a small collection of artifacts that paint a lovely picture of how the distillery was started and the impact that this business has made on this history of the Lynchburg area. A large display contains the story of Nearest Green, a former slave who taught Jack Daniels how to make whiskey and was later hired by Mr. Daniels as his head distiller, making Mr. Green quite possibly the first African-American Master Distiller in the country (cool fact – descendants of Jack Daniels and Nearest Green still work at the distillery that their ancestors founded). The building also contains a bottle shop where you can purchase a bottle of Jack and have it engraved. But wait! This is located in a dry county! How is that possible? Well, the store is called a Bottle Shop. Technically, you are buying the bottle. It just happens to be filled with Jack. And the tastings are possible because they are just at the limit of the amount that the law permits. Very sneaky, Jack Daniels.
Once the tour begins, visitors are taken by shuttle to the top of the hill to the Rickyard. Whiskey is filtered through charcoal and they make their own on-site using wood that has been rejected by the furniture making industry and would otherwise be waste. They burn this wood using an accelerant made from a high alcohol content byproduct of the distilling process which would also be considered waste and is illegal to sell. We also learned that because of this burning process and all of the alcohol vapors in the air, the distillery has it’s own fire unit that is fully equipped to handle any issues that may come up at their location.
The next stop on our tour was a beautiful spring hidden way back in the rocks of the hill. This spring (which naturally maintains a constant temperature of around 55 degrees and is filtered by the surrounding limestone through which it flows) is the reason that Mr. Jack Daniels originally chose this site for his operations and its water is still used today in Jack Daniels whiskey.
Located just down the hill from the spring is the original office used by Jack and his successors. The office was still in use well into the middle of the 1900’s and still holds the legendary safe that cost Jack his life (rumor says that he became angry at not being able to get the safe open one day and kicked it, breaking his toe and causing an infection that would eventually claim his life in 1911).
From the office, it is just a short walk to the actual production buildings where the mash is turned into whiskey and then goes through the mellowing process, and is then bottled and shipped around the globe. Guests can also see a few of the barrel houses in the background where the whiskey is held during the aging process.
Finally, we arrived at the tasting rooms. We had chosen the “Angel’s Share” tour (referring to the amount of liquor that is lost due to evaporation while being held in the barrels) and were given the opportunity to taste four different Jack Daniels products – the classic Jack Daniels Old No. 7 (to this day, no one knows for sure why it’s called this although there are many theories and rumors), Jack Daniels Sinatra Select (said to be a requirement of Frank Sinatra to have on stage for every performance), Jack Daniels Single Barrel Select, and Jack Daniels Single Barrel : Barrel Proof. Although we used the skills we learned at the bourbon tasting in Kentucky, we still felt like our mouths were on fire after each sample and coughed like small children who had snuck a sip from their parent’s liquor cabinet.
Despite not being big whiskey fans, we both really enjoyed the tour and had a great time learning about this iconic American brand. We also gained a new respect for the Jack Daniels brand when we learned the following:
Many years ago, Jack Daniels was bought out by a larger manufacturer but surprisingly did not go to the highest bidder. There were conditions to the sale – the new owner must promise to keep production in Lynchburg as the local economy is dependent upon it being there, the new owners may not fire any workers to replace them with their own people, and the product must continue to be made according to the high standards and the detailed process that the Jack Daniels brand was known for. The Jack Daniels company actually took a lower offer because the higher bidders would not agree to their terms. They also sell some of their mash and other byproducts to local farms and repurpose their barrels by selling them to other liquor manufacturers and selling them in the gift shop as souvenirs. How cool is that?
