My daughter-in-law had an interview with the Board of Education in Tullahoma.
It was a beautiful bright sunny day as we traveled to Tullahoma, Tennessee.
My grandson was wearing a smile on his face, a bright orange American eagle Tee Shirt, with below the knee denim shorts and brown tennis shoes.
My granddaughter was wearing a bright red tee shirt with “What would Jesus Do” printed on the front with denim shorts and gray tennis shoes.
I was wearing a white tee shirt with a Harley Davison motorcycle printed on the front (that I had purchased at the Harley Davidson Store in Gulf Shores, Alabama), with denim shorts, white tennis shoes, and white socks with American flag and USA on the neck of the socks.
My daughter-in-law was wearing a long black skirt, mint green pull over top with black sandals.
While my daughter-in-law was being interview Jake, Hannah and I walked over to the Gano/Bussell log cabin.
It is the oldest known structure in Tullahoma build about 1850.
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.
A tin roof was added, steps to the back and front were added, and a covered front porch was added to the reassembled log cabin.
Placed on the front porch were a wooden rocker and bench for visitors to relax on.
The smell of fresh herbs came from the fenced in herb garden near by.
Here we took pictures and made videos.
Beside the Board of Education building we saw the Tullahoma Public School (now Civic Center) school buses, Red Cross building and a Confederate Cemetery Historic Marker that read:
1 mile SW is 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.
The kids posed for a picture at the South Jackson Civic Center that was 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 tour of the Jack Daniel Distillery.
We each took turns taking pictures beside the of the life size picture of Jasper Newton “Jack Daniel.”
Jake tried to poke his finger up Jack’s nose.
At the visitors’ center was several displays explaining 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 f furiously from the generated carbon dioxide as the sugars are converted to alcohol. Fermentation results in the mash having about a 24% alcohol level.
3. Boil the mash and then cool the resulting vapor to extract the alcohol. The liquor is now 70% alcohol (140 proof), and just a small whiff will hit you like a bag of rocks!
4. Slowly drip the liquor through 10 feet of maple charcoal to "mellow" the flavor. It is still 140 proofs as it is collected from the bottom of the charcoal tower, 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 pores in the oak barrel, extracting sugars and giving the whiskey its color.
Pull the barrels and bottle!
After visiting the museum, we watched a short film by Jack Daniel’s about some of the independent spirits who call Lynchburg home.
Along with a group of others, we were taken on the tour of the distillery process.
We visited the barrel warehouses, stills, and spring and bottle plant.
We saw the iron safe that killed Jack.
One morning Jack could not remember the combination to his safe kicked it got gangue green and later died.
Several labels of whiskey distilled here are Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack, Tennessee Honey, Tennessee Fire, Green Label, Silver Select, Winter Jack, and No., 27 Gold.
Our guide a long time member of the Distillery looked very much like Jack Daniels but a much larger version.
After our tour, I took a picture of the grandkids next to our much larger version of Jack Daniels.
We thanked him, walked back through the visitor’s center the front door to our car and road home.
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Setting on Wall near flowers, vines at Jack Daniels |