Marla and I had a week to kill in September of 2016 and we wanted to go somewhere that we had never been before. We settled on something really different and new for us : Nashville and Memphis. We became fans of country music and had a wonderful time. Both locations were very cool.
Our first outing in Nashville was on Broadway street or Music Row which was only a short walk from our hotel.
As we approached there was a magnificent building arising into the sky that looked like a Batman silhouette. It was the ATT building and it set the tone for how metropolitan Nashville is.
Music Row had bar after bar of country music being played, and being played well. We wondered how many future music stars were there hammering it out at the local scene paying their dues. It was also cool to see photos in the bars of musicians who had played there earlier in their careers.
There also was no shortage of neon on Broadway either.
We went bar hopping into places such as Tootsie’s and the Tequila Cowboy . Most of these honky tonks were packed to standing room only ….. and it was only in the afternoon, on a weekday!
I was enjoying the fact that in most all the bars the band played in the front and the drummer was often in the window of the bar. Many bands would cycle through during the day to keep the music flowing.
There were also Party Bicycles cruising the streets. A Party bike is a 12 seat bike , four wheeled bike that your group can rent with a bar in the middle. We saw many bridal parties pedaling and drinking have a great time, if they remembered it.
It was a great day for a drive so we decided to trek the 74 miles south to Lynchburg and tour the Jack Daniel’s distillery. An interesting point to note here is that Lynchburg is located in Moore County which is a dry county and has been since Prohibition.
The Jack Daniel’s Distillery is a major attraction in this small town. Its basically a working distillery where they offer a variety of tours. We chose one and were soon wisked off to explore the surrounding grounds and where we were entertained by numerous Jack stories.
Of particular interest was how Jack died. He was to travel to Nashville on business and needed to get into a safe that his brother usually opened. Jack could not open the safe, got mad and kicked it so hard that he broke his toe. Jack’s toe became infected with gangrene and was amputated, and his foot then became infected. He eventually died as a result of this injury.
Marla demonstrates.
Next we were taken over to a cave spring. The distillery is located around this cave spring or “hollow” where the water is filtered through limestone, which removes the iron from the water. The cave spring or “Jack Daniel’s Hollow “ draws about 800 gallons a minute from below the earth surface and where the water stays at a constant 56 degrees. Jack Daniel bought this hollow and surrounding land in 1884 for $2,148. That was the beginning of his Whiskey business and where it has stayed all these years. Today every bottle of Jack Daniel’s is made from this spring water.
We then got to go inside the working distillery where there were many huge barrels of Whiskey at their various stages of production.
Then on to a storage area where the liquid gold is stacked, stowed and aged in smaller barrels.
If you purchased the Whiskey tasting package, the tasting was then offered at the end of the tour. Not being whiskey drinkers we didn’t upgrade our ticket…. but it sure looked like fun!!
Honky Tonkin in Tennessee 