Traveling through the heart of America’s distillery country we made a few stops to do our own comparison of Kentucky Bourbon and Tennessee Whisky. We learned what it means to be called a bourbon and how water and climate are both the primary reason that our countries best distillery is located in this area.

We visited both Jack Daniel’s in Lynchburg TN, and Jim Bean in Clermont KY. We were able to understand the differences in the processes between these two fine American whiskies but we really enjoyed the end of the tours where we had a tasting.

Both distilleries have been around for more than a century, but what I found most interesting is that both distilleries were successful in part because of good relationships between blacks and whites. This is counterintuitive since both of these states were former slave states. The best example was at Jack Daniel’s where young Jack purchased the still from a part time minister, Dan Call who was pushed by his family and congregation to choose one of the other… Young Jack, whom had worked with Nathan “Nearest” Green, the still operator for the minister ask Nearest, a former slave to join him in moving the operation to a cave spring. Nearest was the first master distiller and a member of the Green family has worked at Jack Daniel’s every since.

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