My daughter-in-law had an interview with the Tullahoma Board of Education.
We traveled to Tullahoma, Tennessee, on a beautiful, bright, sunny day.
My grandson was wearing a bright orange American Eagle T-shirt, below-the-knee denim shorts, and brown tennis shoes, smiling.
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| Hannah and Jake |
My granddaughter wore a bright red t-shirt with "What Would Jesus Do" printed on the front, denim shorts, and gray tennis shoes.
I was wearing a white T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle printed on the front (that I had purchased at the Harley-Davidson Store in Gulf Shores, Alabama), denim shorts, white tennis shoes, and white socks with an American flag and USA on the neck.
My daughter-in-law was wearing a long black skirt, a mint-green pullover, and black sandals.
While Jake, Hannah, and I were interviewing my daughter-in-law, we walked over to the Gano/Bussell log cabin.
It is the oldest known structure in Tullahoma, built about 1850.
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| Gano/Bussell Log Cabin |
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| Standing on the porch of Gano/Bussell Log Cabin |
The log cabin once stood at 607 Atlantic Street, where it was dismantled and later reassembled at its current location, 404 South Jackson Street, at the Public Square.
The reassembled log cabin received a tin roof, steps to the back and front, and a covered front porch.
A wooden rocker and bench are placed on the front porch for visitors to relax.
The smell of fresh herbs came from the fenced-in herb garden nearby.
Here, we took pictures and made videos.
Besides the Board of Education building, we saw the Tullahoma Public School (now Civic Center) school buses, the Red Cross building, and a Confederate Cemetery Historical Marker that read:
1 mile SW has buried 407 unknown Confederates. Many of these died in one of the hospitals established here when Tullahoma was headquarters for the Army of Tennessee during the first six months of 1863, following the Battle of Murfreesboro and preceding the withdrawal of the Army of Chattanooga.
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| Tullahoma Public School |
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| Red Cross building |
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| CONFEDERATE CEMETERY |
The kids posed for a picture at the South Jackson Civic Center, built in 1886 as the first public school.
We ate lunch after my daughter-in-law finished her interview.
We then rode to Lynchburg, Tennessee, where we toured the Jack Daniel Distillery.
We each took turns taking pictures beside the life-size image of Jasper Newton, "Jack Daniel."
Jake tried to poke his finger up Jack's nose.
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| Jake, Hannah, and a picture of Jack Daniels |
Several displays at the visitors' center explained the basic steps to making Tennessee whiskey.
1. Mix the mash (corn, barley, malt, and yeast) with iron-free spring water.
2. Ferment the mash for 6 days. No heat is applied, but the 2-story towers of mash bubbled furiously with the carbon dioxide generated as the sugars are converted to alcohol. Fermentation results in the mash having about a 24% alcohol level.
3. Boil the mash and cool the resulting vapor to extract the alcohol. The liquor is now 70% alcohol (140 proof), and just a tiny whiff will hit you like a bag of rocks!
4. Slowly drip the liquor through 10 feet of maple charcoal to "mellow" the flavor. As it is collected from the bottom of the charcoal tower, it is still 140 proofs, but the sharpness is gone. As I understand it, only after this mellowing stage can the liquor be declared "Tennessee whiskey."
5. Add spring water to cut the whisky to 80 proof (40% alcohol).
6. Place in a charred oak barrel and age for at least 4 years in an unheated/uncooled warehouse. The changing temperatures push the whisky in and out of the barrel's pores, extracting sugars and giving it its color.
Pull the barrels and the bottle!
After visiting the museum, we watched a short film by Jack Daniel about some independent spirits calling Lynchburg home.
We were taken on a group tour of the distillery process.
We visited the barrel warehouses, stills, spring, and bottle plants.
We saw the iron safe that killed Jack.
One morning, Jack could not remember the combination to his safe, kicked it, got gangrene, and later died.
Several whiskey labels are distilled here: Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack, Tennessee Honey, Tennessee Fire, Green Label, Silver Select, Winter Jack, and No. 27 Gold.
Our guide, a longtime Distillery member, resembled Jack Daniel's, but in a much larger form.
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| Standing next to Jack Daniel |
After our tour, I photographed the grandkids next to our much larger version of Jack Daniel's
We thanked him, walked back through the visitor's center, went through the front door of our car, and headed home.
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| OUR Guide, Hannah, Jake |
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| Our Guide, Statue of Jack Daniels |
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| Set on the Wall near the flower vines at Jack Daniels. |
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