Jack Daniels

2019-05-06 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Springtime in Kentucky; Frankfurt, KY – Day #12

We carpooled together this morning to Frankfort – the capital of Kentucky. I’m always surprised when I see a state capital that is such a small town. The population of Frankfort is only about 28,000… It is so small you could hardly see it because of the trees…

But before we could park at the capitol building we found: The Zeigler Residence!

It is not open to the public… Sad…

So we moved on to a perfect example of Beaux-Arts/Greek Revival Architecture…

Statue of Abe Lincoln…

The rotunda dome… LED lights subtly change colors…

EVERYTHING in this building follows the golden rule – what you do to one side you must do to the other. True in algebra and true in the symmetry of classical buildings…

The other president born in Kentucky – Jefferson Davis…

The State Supreme Court…

The legislative floor…

The Assembly Chamber…

The Senate chamber…

I’m not a fan of these neo-classical building. I do appreciate the attention to detail, beautifully executed by the stone masons…

What annoys me is when designers, who often do not know how materials and buildings go together, try to duplicate these details in a studs and stucco construction… Sorry – you can’t do these details in stucco!

All in all it was a nicely detailed building but a little over-scaled. It seemed too heavy for my taste, and the proportions seemed a little “off”…

We had a great tour, then we moved on to the Kentucky VietNam Veterans Memorial…

The design is unique in that it is a sundial with the names of the dead located on the granite floor such that the shadow of the point of the sundial falls on the name on the day of the year that he or she died…

It is a little confusing, but a moving memorial in any case…

Time for a break. We drove into downtown Frankfort; we walked the (small) town and enjoyed a nice lunch at Serafini…

During lunch we saw a commotion of people gathering just outside the restaurant and across the street, on the lawn of the “old” state capitol building…

Today was an all-state peace officers memorial ceremony for officers killed in the line of duty…

Bagpipes were playing…

It looked like a nice, small town parade and gathering of like-minded people. Very nice…

After lunch we walked around the town; we especially liked the buildings overhanging the Kentucky River…

We soon arrived at our next tour:

Rebecca Ruth was in business making candy for over 60 years; as a women this was unheard of… In Kentucky in the 19th and early 20th century women without a father or a husband simply didn’t exist – they could not own property, have a bank account, or do much of anything… She confounded all these ideas…

Rebecca Ruth is credited with inventing the famous bourbon balls, although the claim is disputed… There was a nice tour and many folks bought lots of chocolate…

But we were moving on to our final tour of the day: Buffalo Trace!

Buffalo Trace is one of my favorite “go to” daily drinking bourbons, along with Makers Mark. But I knew little about it; I was looking forward to this tour! Boy! Was I surprised!

The distillery is very old, and is listed on the National Listing of Historic Places…

Here is the buffalo… I’m not sure what they are trying to tell us about the water they use here…

We had the standard tour, seeing the barrel houses, the fermentation tanks, and the bottling line…

Wait! This is Buffalo Trace?

When we toured Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, Jack Daniel’s, and others, we heard all about the original family’s dedication to making a high quality whiskey (or whisky), how they developed their brand, their distinction in the marketplace, and their unique flavor profile. And, yes, we learned that the family eventually sold out to one of the multinational conglomerates that own the vast majority of makers of wine, beer, and spirits… Here at Buffalo Trace I learned something different.

Buffalo Trace Distillery is a corporate “made up” brand, and is part of a corporate conglomerate that buys up smaller brands and farms out their services and distilleries to brands owned by others. Buffalo Trace is owned by the Sazerac Company, which is privately owned by a billionaire (William Goldring and his family) in New Orleans. The corporate office is in Louisville, Kentucky. As of 2017, it operated nine distilleries, had 2,000 employees, and operated in 112 countries. It is one of the two largest spirits companies in the U.S., with annual revenue of about $1 billion made from selling about 300 mostly discount brands. They claim it is the largest and privately held distillery, but Heaven Hill disputes that point… They also claim it’s the oldest continuously operating distillery, built in 1812. However, Burks’ distillery, now used for production of Maker’s Mark, disputes this. According to its citation in the registry of National Historic Landmarks, Burks’ Distillery’s origins extend to 1805, and Burks’ Distillery is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest operating bourbon distillery. So we know that Buffalo Trace claims things that may just be apocryphal…

The distillery has historically been known by several names, including the George T. Stagg Distillery and the Old Fire Copper (O.F.C.) Distillery. The company says the name “Buffalo Trace” refers to an ancient buffalo crossing on the banks of the Kentucky River in Franklin County, Kentucky. The Sazerac Company purchased the distillery in 1992, and Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey was “invented” in 1999. So, as you see, Buffalo Trace was no small Mom and Pop brand that did well…

Records indicate that distilling started on the site that is now the Buffalo Trace Distillery in 1775 by Hancock Lee and his brother Willis Lee, who died in 1776. The first distillery was constructed in 1812 by Harrison Blanton. In 1870 the distillery was purchased by Edmund H. Taylor and given its first name, the Old Fire Copper (O.F.C.) Distillery. Taylor sold the distillery eight years later to George T. Stagg along with the Old Oscar Pepper Distillery. This second distillery was sold within the year to James Graham, in order to add more land to the O.F.C. Distillery. In 1886, Stagg installed steam heating in the storage warehouses, the first climate controlled warehouse for aging whiskey in the nation. This is another unique feature of Buffalo Trace… Most other brands brag that their barrel houses are NOT climate controlled… (Except for Woodford Reserve…)

While Buffalo Trace Distillery is mainly known for its bourbon, it also produces other spirits such as rye whiskey and vodka, plus quasi-bourbon such are Bourbon Cream. (More of Bourbon Cream later…).

Buffalo Trace is HUGE! The following spirits are produced by Buffalo Trace Distillery:

Self-produced brands
- Buffalo Trace – straight bourbon
- Col. E. H. Taylor – small batch, single-barrel, and barrel proof straight bourbon and rye
- Eagle Rare – straight bourbon and 17 year antique collection
- George T. Stagg – barrel-proof straight bourbon
- Stagg Jr.- barrel proof straight bourbon
- McAfee’s Benchmark – straight bourbon
- O.F.C. – straight bourbon (with a prior name for the distillery)
- Old Charter – straight bourbon
- Old Taylor – straight bourbon
- Sazerac – straight rye and Sazerac antique collection
- Thomas H. Handy – barrel-proof straight rye
- W. L. Weller – special reserve, antique 107, and barrel proof William Larue Weller antique collection straight bourbon (with a wheated mash bill very similar or identical to that for the Van Winkle brands)
- Wheatley Vodka
Brands produced in partnership with Age International (a former owner of the distillery, now part of the Japanese company Takara Holdings):
- Ancient Age – straight bourbon
- Blanton’s single-barrel – straight bourbon
- Hancock’s President’s Reserve – single-barrel straight bourbon
- Elmer T. Lee – single-barrel straight bourbon
- Rock Hill Farms – single-barrel straight bourbon
Brands produced in partnership with the Van Winkle family (under an agreement established in June 2002):
- Old Rip Van Winkle – straight bourbon (wheated)
- Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve – straight bourbon (wheated)
- Van Winkle Special Reserve – straight bourbon (wheated)
- Van Winkle Family Reserve – straight rye

So, rather than having a great family story, Buffalo Trace is a product of a giant corporate conglomerate. Nothing romantic, no great family story, nothing to write home about. However, it is a VERY good bourbon!

Finally we moved on to the tasting…

We tasted some white lightning and some vodka that they make. Nothing special, although the vodka is rated to be very good and is at a price point far below other premium vodkas…

We tasted Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare. Same mash bill, but Eagle Rare is a higher proof and it has been aged longer… It was marginally better than Buffalo Trace, which, of course, was quite good.

Then we tasted the bourbon cream. It is a bourbon liqueur, 30 proof; It is made with bourbon and real cream. A special process enables these two dissimilar products to blend nicely without curdling. It was spectacular! (And I don’t like Harvey’s or Bristol Cream…)

Then we added a little root beer to the bourbon cream. Root beer float! Add a little ice cream for a real treat!

And, of course, we were given bourbon balls to enjoy!

So the tasting was fun, but the back story was disappointing…

We returned to the Villa and turned in early. And an enjoyable time was had by all…

May 9, 2019 0

2019-04-27 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Springtime in Kentucky; Dairy Farm Tour in Bowling Green, KY – Day #3

The caravan set out today to tour a dairy farm. But not just any dairy farm! We visited the Chaney’s Dairy Barn just south of Bowling Green. It was not like any dairy I had ever seen before, and I have seen one or two…

The Chaney family has owned this land since 1886, and they started a dairy here in 1940. They have exclusively Jersey cows – the light brown ones…

We started the tour at the gift shop – cafe – ice cream parlor; we boarded the farm wagon for the trip to the barn…

I was shocked to learn that they are currently milking 60 cows (out of a total herd of about 120 or so…). They have about 55 acres of land. Wow! I thought all dairies milked hundreds if not thousands of cows! The next thing we learned is that they have no milkers – no people wrangling the cows into the barn, no one attaching the milking machines, no one. They have one herdsman, who is in charge of all the cows, and one robotic milking machine, made by Lely in the Netherlands… The herdsman is the niece of the farm’s owners…

The cows spend all their time hanging out in a comfortable barn…

When they feel the “urge” to get milked they wander over to the robotic milking machine and get milked!

The next cow in line is waiting patiently…

When the milking is complete she moves on…

During the five-six minutes it takes to complete the cleaning and milking process the cow is weighed, the milk production is analyzed, and the herdsman gets lots of data to ensure the cows are healthy and happy…

They even have automated back-scratching machines and a “Rumba”-like robot which sweeps the feed lane and pushes the feed up closer to where the cows are eating… Amazing!

Then the real story comes out. The cows and the milk don’t pay the bills here. Like many dairies, they barely break even on the milk and often lose money. That is why many small family dairies are closing down and selling out. The Chaney family figured out a way to keep the family farm, and its inherent lifestyle: Us!

Yes, Agri-tourism is a big thing here. By offering tours, plus the cafe, playground, gift shop, ice cream, and other related things the family can make a living and keep the farm. The next generation is starting to establish the ability to process their milk themselves, so that they can sell their own cheese, ice cream, and, yes, milk.

The Chaney family were delightful people and they really have a passion for these cows. It was a fun tour!

Rather than ride the wagon back to the cafe, we walked…

We did, of course, have lunch and some ice cream…

And then we moved on. The only distillery in Bowling Green closed up shop and moved to Nashville a few months ago, so a few of us drove about 10 miles south to Franklin, KY, to the Dueling Grounds Distillery. So named because several famous duels took place near here on the Linkumpinch Dueling Field in 1826.

Tennessee Representative Sam Houston gravely wounded General William A. White, a veteran of the Battle of New Orleans, in a pistol duel. In a convoluted turn of events, White was the stand-in for Nashville Postmaster John P. Erwin. Patronage politics were at the root of this affair of honor. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee had promoted another candidate for Nashville postmaster against Erwin. Jackson encouraged Houston to thwart Erwin’s appointment. Houston wrote to President John Quincy Adams, that Erwin “is not a man of fair and upright moral character.” He also attacked Erwin in a speech on the House Floor. When Houston returned to Tennessee after the 19th Congress (1825–1827), Erwin dispatched Colonel John Smith T., a professional duelist, to deliver a challenge to Houston for besmirching Erwin’s character. That challenge was rejected, but General White then proceeded to challenge Houston directly, who reluctantly accepted. Houston was tried for attempted murder, but was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense…

Anyway, this is as good a reason as any to name your distillery “Dueling Grounds” and to name your Bourbon, “Linkumpinch”.

We had a great tour! Unlike Jack Daniel’s, where the process is controlled by computers and two guys sitting in a control booth, these guys at Dueling Grounds really make the Bourbon! We saw them adding corn, then wheat, then malted barley to the mash cooker, we saw them punch down the fermenting mash, we saw them transferring the fermented liquid to the still, and we saw their manual bottling line. (Their barrels are stored off-site in a borrowed facility…)

Adding wheat to the mash cooker…

The fermenting mash…

The three fermenters…

The still. Clear ethyl alcohol drips out of the still like a weak stream of water from a small faucet. (At Jack Daniel’s, it pours from their 90′ tall stills like water shooting out of a fire hose!) They distill the whiskey here twice, to clarify and purify it, and to increase the alcohol content.

They have a very small production – three 250 gallon fermenters each produce about 50 gallons of clear whiskey.

The clear whiskey is placed in new charred oak barrels and aged a minimum of two years. Since this distillery is quite young, their current Bourbon has been aged just two years. They have plans to age some barrels 5, 7, and 12 years…

Most of the flavor in Bourbon is imparted by the barrel. The clear whiskey (“White Lightning”) is not very pleasant to drink.

Tour over, we returned to the tasting room…

We tasted their whiskeys and some of their fruit liqueurs. Purchases in hand, we headed back to the Villa…

We were able to relax a bit in the afternoon, then we had another GAM. Afterwards, we walked about the park. We found baby Canada Geese…

And we found a puppy raiser for CCI – Canine Companions for Independence…

Our son has a Service Dog, professionally trained and certified by CCI, a great organization that provides service dogs to those who need them for free… This couple has raised 12 puppies, each for about 18 months, then has turned them over for professional training…

This evening we had another Drivers Meeting; we travel tomorrow to Bardstown, near Louisville, for various activities at Churchill Downs before the Kentucky Derby on Saturday…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

April 30, 2019 0

2019-04-22 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Traveling from Chattanooga, TN to Lynchburg TN, and Jack Daniels, and on to Huntsville, AL…

We prepared to leave for traveling to Lynchburg, TN, this morning. Then we realized that Lynchburg is in the Central Time Zone and we were still in Eastern time in Chattanooga. So we had an extra hour to kill. But we left relatively early, and had a nice drive across Tennessee. (The highway even dipped south for a few miles into Georgia before it turned slightly north back into Tennessee…)

We soon arrived in Lynchburg, and …

This is their fully restored antique truck, from all the way back in 1980…

Signage on this truck shows Jack Daniel’s motto: “All Goods Worth Price Charged.”

The tour began by hearing an explanation of what Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey is:

The law defines Tennessee Whiskey as: a spirit manufactured in Tennessee; made from grain that consists of at least 51% corn; distilled to no more than 160 proof (80% abv); filtered through maple charcoal prior to aging; aged in new charred oak barrels; placed in the barrel at no more than 125 proof (62.5% abv); and, bottled at not less than 80 proof (40% abv).

Except for the filtering through maple charcoal, this defines Bourbon. In other words, Tennessee Whiskey is Bourbon filtered through maple charcoal. Jack Daniels calls this process “Mellowing”.

We started at the Rick House, where they burn the sugar maple; we moved on to the water source, deep inside this cave:

Here is a statue of Jack Daniel standing on a granite boulder; you know, Jack on the Rocks…

This building was the headquarters office used by Jack Daniel’s up until 1958; it was here, in about 1905, that Jack kicked the company safe one morning, broke his toe, and died a few years later from gangrene, at the age of 61.

The owners of the company in 1958 (four brothers who had inherited the business) sold the business to Brown-Foreman for $20,000,000. It is still owned by Brown-Foreman today. Brown-Foreman also owns Early Times, Old Forester, Woodford Reserve, Canadian Mist, GlenDronach, BenRiach, Glenglassaugh, Finlandia, Herradura, Korbel, and Chambord.

This is the Still House; it contains four giant 90′ tall stills, which produce the clear corn whiskey:

The sour mash waste, after it is distilled, is piped over to this facility, where it is sold to local farmers as cattle feed; it still contains 6-8% alcohol. Talk about contented cows!

This is the Mellowing House, where the clear whiskey is dripped, drop by drop, over a 10′ tall stack of charcoal, a process called mellowing…

The bottling lines are always my favorite part of these tours… This is a small line dedicated to their Single Barrel Whiskeys. It dates from 1970 and seemed to me to be very non-automated – there is a lot of work done manually, like putting on labels, hanging tags around the neck, and putting the bottles into the cardboard boxes…

Finally, the tour over, we head to the educational part of the tour: the tasting. This is strictly for educational purposes only, since drinking whiskey in this county is forbidden…

We were given five sample with which to get educated. It totaled about one ounce; we were told about how each type is made and what the differences are. The funny thing was that both Lynda and I found the Rye to be terribly sweet, yet the “honey” version had very little taste at all. Our guide checked it out and found that the two samples were switched! It mattered little – we didn’t like either of them… I found that I liked Gentleman Jack, while Lynda preferred the original…

After the educational portion of the tour we walked through one of the old barrel rooms…

After the tour we could return to the Visitor Center. While you cannot buy whiskey in this county, you can buy souvenir bottles here. The bottles were filled with some sort of brown liquid…

We walked 1/2 mile into downtown Lynchburg, and enjoyed lunch at Bottle House BBQ:

We returned to the Villa and drove to Huntsville, Alabama…

They are building McMansions here, too…

We parked at an RV park at NASA’s Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville…

The RV park is very nice. And cheap! I wish we had RV parks in California like this for $20 per night…

For dinner this night we met up with friends we met on the Nor’ by Nor’ East Caravan; they will also be joining us on the Kentucky caravan in a few days…

Dinner was great! Pork Belly appetizer and Crawfish Fritters, with a nice bottle of an Oregon Pinot Noir!

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

April 26, 2019 0

Adventures in the Villa

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2019-05-06 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Springtime in Kentucky; Frankfurt, KY – Day #12

2019-04-27 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Springtime in Kentucky; Dairy Farm Tour in Bowling Green, KY – Day #3

2019-04-22 – Airstream Caravan Travels – Traveling from Chattanooga, TN to Lynchburg TN, and Jack Daniels, and on to Huntsville, AL…

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