{"id":1614,"date":"2018-11-14T06:44:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T14:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2019-02-25T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T06:06:09","slug":"jack-on-the-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/11\/14\/jack-on-the-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack on the Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a hard time deciding on the title for this blog.\u00a0 The other contender was \u201cThank you for your service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sue and I traveled through Tennessee last week. It\u2019s a glorious state with a lot to see. I expected that. What I didn\u2019t expect was the way we were treated on Veteran\u2019s Day. I couldn\u2019t pay for anything. When Sue and I went to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery in Lynchburg, they asked if either of us were veterans. I guess I was surprised at the question and I didn\u2019t answer immediately, but Sue did. \u201cYes, my husband was in the Army.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no charge for you today, then, sir, and thank you for your service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow, I just saved $20. That was nice.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Melissa, our tour guide at Jack Daniel’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Jack Daniel’s tour was fun, even though it was raining cats and dogs on that fine Tennessee Veteran\u2019s Day. Our tour guide, Melissa, made it especially so, with one great story after another. I\u2019ve known of Jack Daniel’s for a long time; what I didn\u2019t know was that it was a sleepy backwater distillery for most of its life until a young crooner named Frank Sinatra made it known he wouldn\u2019t drink anything else.\u00a0 Frank Sinatra was buried with a bottle of Jack, along with a dollar’s worth of dimes because he didn’t know where he was going, but he knew they might have pay phones there. Frank Sinatra’s favor put Jack Daniel’s on the map, and the rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jack on display. They have two more varieties in addition to those shown here (Honey, and Fire).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found out that if you work at Jack Daniel’s, you get a free bottle of Jack every month (and they are always hiring). I learned that every bottle of Jack Daniel’s ever made has been made at that plant, which is fed by an underground spring with water that is perfect for producing Tennessee sipping whiskey. I learned that you can buy Jack Daniel’s by the barrel, and more than a few folks do (they have an entire wall lined with small plaques denoting those who did). Melissa walked us through the entire manufacturing process, and as a former manufacturing guy, I found it fascinating. They have a statue of Jack Daniel standing on several large boulders and, of course, they refer to it as \u201cJack on the Rocks.\u201d We opted for the tasting tour at the end, and I learned that there are actually five variants of Old No. 7. All of them are really, really good. We had a blast.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ready for sipping. All were great.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
I always get one photo of Sue that defines the trip. This is the one from our recent Tennessee Tour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After our amazing Jack Daniel’s tour, we stopped for lunch at the Southern Perks restaurant in Lynchburg. When we ordered our lunch, the young lady behind the counter popped the same question: Are either of you veterans? Again, Sue was quick to answer, and again, the response was the same: \u201cThank you for your service, sir. Your lunch is on us today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Downtown Lynchburg. It was a fun place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wow. I was speechless. A little choked up, actually. I\u2019ve never been treated like this, and I left the Army a cool 42 years ago. I didn\u2019t know what to say, and like always, I thought of the right response too late. When I hear \u201cThanks for your service\u201d the next time, I’ll have my answer ready.<\/p>\n

It was my pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a hard time deciding on the title for this blog.\u00a0 The other contender was \u201cThank you for your service.\u201d Sue and I traveled through Tennessee last week. It\u2019s a glorious state with a lot to see. I expected that. What I didn\u2019t expect was the way we were treated on Veteran\u2019s Day. I … Continue reading “Jack on the Rocks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[235,392,96],"tags":[413,414],"class_list":["post-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-back-in-the-day","category-feel-good-stuff","tag-jack-daniels","tag-tennessee"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3006,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/3006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}