Had a meeting in Atlanta recently and went through Lynchburg TN on the way down. Made time for the Jack Daniels tour. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you get the chance go.
We got to walk the yard and see eveything from the barrel shop, the milling and cooking, fermentation, distilling, barreling, and bottling. Amazing to see three stills running and raw whisky coming off the back end. It was Sunday so we didn't see them pulling barrels for bottling, but did go into the bottling line.
Now for some questions
They mentioned the used barrels get shipped to Scotland and Ireland for whisky there. Anyone know who gets the barrels?
I'd always had this image of someone carefully managing the still and testing the product. It looks like any other industrial site with computer controlled operation. Are the operations in Scotland "traditional" or "modern"?
Once the raw whisky was placed into the barrels and moved to the aging house, it is removed barrel by barrel when its time has come. Do other distilleries just go by age or test the barrels for perfect result?
Thanks for the help.
MAH