It wasn't long before it was time for Jed & I to head out on the road again. This time we were going to head west. We have recently had some friends move out to Knoxville, TN so we decided to head that way to explore with them for the weekend.
Friday night, we spent some time catching up and checking out downtown Knoxville. We settled on a place called Downtown Grill & Brewery. At the restaurant, we decided we were not in a hurry so we would hang out in Knoxville that evening and continue the driving west in the morning.
On Saturday morning, we headed out to the Whiskey Trail.
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| Amy, Peter, Jed & I |
Our first stop was at George Dickel's place. I never really thought about how out in the middle of nowhere these places would be. For a while, we thought we were lost or headed to the wrong place.
We took a tour but decided to just do the "boring" tour instead of the drinking tour because of how long we would have to wait for the tour and it would put us later to other establishments that we also didn't want to miss.
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| The Welcome Center is the old Post Office |
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| The Creek where they get water to make the whiskey |
The tour was really interesting and informative. This place is definitely a tiny little mom & pop place and it was really interesting to tour and learn.
We decided that we would purchase a bottle from each place and then try them all in the evening so after our tour, a few pictures and a bottle of George, we were back on the road to find Jack Daniels.
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| Jack Daniel's Welcome Center |
This place was no joke! I think Jed & Peter kept calling it the Disneyland of whiskey places. There were a TON of people and it did feel a lot more like an attraction then the last place. But we took our number for our tour group and checked out the welcome center.
The tour was really neat and a lot of similar information just on a bit larger scale for where we had just come from. We learned not just about how they make whiskey but we learned that there really is a Jack Daniel's and in a really crazy story, died because he was stubborn & kicked a safe that he couldn't get opened and was stubborn and didn't seek help and died from that. He left everything to a nephew since he did not have children of his own.
Both of these distilleries we visited so far have a history that go back to the 1800's. It was interesting to hear about probation & moonshine times and how they made it (or didn't make it) and came back.
After our tour, we walked down to the city square of Lynchburg, TN. It was super cute! Apparently it was some kind of bike weekend here and there were a ton of people and lots of motorcycles.
We checked out a few of the stores, grabbed a few treats (MOONPIES!) and found a great little place for lunch called Whiskey Runners.
The food was great and it was a great little house they had converted into a restaurant.
We found one more distillery before ending our time on the Whiskey Trail called Pritchard's . This place might have been the most fun. Our tour guide was hilarious, it was just the 4 of us on the tour and the building is a tiny school house that they have turned into there distillery. This distillery has a much different history and one that only dated back to the 1990's.
They had a TON of different types of whiskey's/ rum's / flavored goodness for us to try as we were the last tour of the day. It was a fantastic way to end our whiskey trail experience even if we still have a few more distilleries to check out in the future.
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| Peter, Jed, Our Guide, Amy, Mrs. Pritchard, & Me |
We walked out with way too many whiskey bottles from this place before we started our trip back to Knoxville. On our way home, we stopped in Chattanooga to grab dinner. After a comedy of hiccups, we ended up checking out two different restaurants before deciding against dinner here and hitting the road for Knoxville.
We did make a quick pit stop to grab one last bottle to complete the evenings taste test by grabbing the new Jack Daniel's Fire that is only sold in select states and select stores.
Peter & Amy took us to a great little Thai restaurant (Stir Fry Café) for dinner before we headed back to there house for the final taste tests.
Sunday was a very chill and relaxing day. We made it to church with Peter and he gave us a tour of downtown Knoxville before we spent the afternoon just hanging out and heading home from a great weekend with friends.
We can't wait to tackle the Kentucky Bourbon Trail next with you guys!!
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