It's only 250 miles but we spent the night in northern Georgia after driving only about 175 miles.
For one thing, I had forgotten about loosing one hour going from Tennessee into Georgia & that would have put us into Alpharetta after the Public Storage place for the trailer was closed.
Also, Thanks to daughter Jamel's suggestion, we spent about 1.5 hours in Lynchburg, Tn @ the Jack Daniel's Distillery. It was so very interesting. No tasting...it's a dry county!......BUT they got special permission in 1995 to sell "it" but not allow drinking it there. Due to the fact they got their license way back in 1866
& it's grandfathered-in they are allowed to continue to produce it there.
About half of the tour is outside & it was raining cats and dogs! Luckily, we had umbrellas & clogs so we fared pretty well. They always take a group photo outside but ours needed to be inside due to the rain:
It was a fascinating free tour. Nice free parking with room for the trailer too. Some people "blow-off" the freebies by buying the whiskey. They offered 5 varieties of Jack Daniel's Whiskey for sale. Each type had been explained to us on the tour about each. Don't ask!
If one buys all 5 types offered the cost is $216. The three that we bought are only distributed in Tennessee....thought that wise because we'd never be able to buy them anywhere else. Brilliant!
Anyway, the three came to about $126. I wish they had a handout with the explanations of each. They didn't so now I need to do some online research, I guess.
What I knew about whiskey is only the spelling & that the Jack Daniel brand is a bit pricey & from their own website:
Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?
Jack Daniel's is not a bourbon - it's a Tennessee Whiskey. Jack Daniel's is dripped slowly - drop-by-drop - through ten feet of firmly packed charcoal (made from hard sugar maple) before going into new charred oak barrels for aging. This special process gives Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey its rare smoothness. It's this extra step - charcoal mellowing – that makes Jack Daniel's a Tennessee Whiskey.
Wikipedia has it wrong & calls it a bourbon whiskey. All Greek to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's an interesting story about Jack Daniel , the man & what killed him.
Why JD is NOT a bourbon: Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey, which is a different style than what can legally be called "bourbon."
By definition, bourbon must be
1) produced in the US,
2) made from at least 51% corn,
3) aged in brand new, charred oak barrels, and
4) be distilled at no more than 160 proof.
Jack Daniels takes its aged whiskey out of the barrel and filters it through charcoal to "soften" it (this is where the definition of "Tennessee whiskey" came from.) You can't alter bourbon from the barrel to the bottle in any way, so JD loses the chance to call it bourbon legally, even if it met the four points above.
On a side note, Lynchburg, TN (which is where Jack Daniel's distillery is located) is located in a "dry" county - you can't drink any JD at the distillery, or legally buy it anywhere in the vicinity.
Well, now, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
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