TN Day 7 - Great Views, Gentleman Jack, and Grilled Cheese
I started out today in Chattanooga. A girl outside a bar in Nashville told me Chattanooga was the best city in Tennessee. I don't know about all that, but from what I saw of it, it was a pretty hip little town. I got my coffee at a place called Milk + Honey because I loved their logo of a cow with bumble bee wings. Naturally I got their milk and honey latte which was delicious, and I also got a lox and cream cheese bagel with a side of fruit. It wasn't quite as good as the bagels I had in New York, but it was still pretty tasty. It also didn't hurt that it was one of the first meals I'd had in a while that wasn't essentially a big pile of meat.
After breakfast, I decided to check out Ruby Falls, a large underground waterfall on Lookout Mountain. Actually seeing the waterfall was pretty pricey and not self guided, so I wasn't sure if I'd have enough time to do my main plan for the day, the Jack Daniels Distillery. I decided to skip the falls but I did't feel too upset because I still got to see this incredible view of the city for free:
With the sights properly soaked in, I started making the trek down to Lynchburg to see the home of the Old Number 7. The distillery claims to be the oldest in the country, and is hilariously located in a dry county. They had to get special permissions from the state to be able to give tastings and sell bottles in their store.
The tour was really fun, mainly because our tour guide had the charm and grandiose speaking pattern of a Baptist preacher. She was a tiny older white woman, but she had a big personality. She greeted all of us on this Sunday morning by proclaiming, "Welcome to the Church of Jack!"
I learned that what separates Tennessee whiskey from Kentucky Bourbon is a mellowing process in big wooden stills filled with charcoal. They make the charcoal themselves in a special process, and everything is recycled so once the whiskey is made the charcoal is sold for barbecue pits and is supposedly quite good.
My favorite fun facts to learn on the trip was that Jack Daniel started learning how to make whiskey when he was just 7 years old. He learned the whiskey making process from the preacher who became his surrogate father's former slave, Nearest Green. Green was so good at making whiskey that Jack hired him as his master distiller once he got his business up and running so he could oversee the whole process and make sure it was up to snuff. Jack was so indebted to Nearest that he made sure his kids always had a job in his distillery as well.
The tour ended with a tasting of five different samples of Jack Daniels. We started with the pure un-mellowed white lighting, moved on to the standard Old No. 7, followed by a single barrel select which comes from just the top shelf barrels making it a little bit stronger and more robust. After that, we had two liqueurs, Honey and Cinnamon. I liked the honey a lot, but did not care much for the cinnamon. The single barrel was probably my favorite though. All in all not a bad way to spend my time in a dry county.
Once the tour was over I began making the long trek out of Tennessee and into North Carolina.
I stopped in Knoxville for a dinner at a place Tom + Chee that a comic from Philly recommended. They specialize in tomato soups and grilled cheese sandwiches. Because I was gonna eat on the go to make my six hour drive more manageable, I bypassed the soup, but got a really incredible grilled cheese with smoked turkey, bacon, and gouda. It was warm and gooey in the best possible way.
My ride to Asheville was fairly uneventful, consisting mostly of just listening to music and Norm Macdonald, except when I stopped for gas at the Tennessee/North Carolina Border. I went into the store to get some gum and coffee and when I walked in there was a white guy at the counter telling a story where he kept saying the N-word a lot while the cashier looked on helplessly. I don't know what it says about the country that I (albeit as a very pasty white boy) only seem to encounter overt racism at gas stations, but so far that's how it's been.
Tennessee Superlatives:
Favorite Coffee: The Empty Cup in Knoxville
Favorite Bar: The Absinthe Room in Memphis
Favorite Beer: Gotta Get Up to Get Down Coffee Milk Stout from Wiseacre Brewing
Favorite Restaurant: Either Elliston Place Soda Shop or the Stillery in Nashville
Favorite BBQ: Central BBQ in Memphis
Favorite Attractions: General Jackson Showboat in Nashville
Favorite Museum: The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis
General Impression of The Nashville Comedy Scene: Wish I'd gotten to see a bit more of it, but I really liked what I saw. Very welcoming and down to earth with a lot of variety of styles. Probably one of the cities that was most open to weirder absurdist stuff, with a tendency towards more set up/punchline type jokes than story based material.
Favorite Random Sightings: Taco Nooga; Alterations Queen; Mrs. B's Reggae Cafe; "Obsessive Christmas Disorder"
Regional Observations: Apparently it's a national brand, but a ton of the comics in Nashville were making fun of Lacroix as a bougie drink and now I'm seeing it everywhere. My third eye has been opened
Albums Listened To: Live NYC Boat Cruise by the Slackers; Live at Carnegie Hall 1970 by Jethro Tull; Live At Elbow Room by Vic Ruggiero
People's Favorite Joke:
I didn't get any today so here's one from the internet:
A drunk staggers out of a bar and lets go of a loud belch just as a couple are walking in the door. The man yells at the drunk, "How dare you belch before this woman!" The drunk says, "I'm sorry! I didn't know she wanted to go first."
Song of the Day:
A Sam Cooke classic with a little reggae twist. The shaky video even captures the full boat experience
