A couple friends and I spent last weekend in Nashville, there to see the Vikings play the Titans. It was the first time in Music City for all of us and, wow, the town is exhausting. We stayed downtown and walked everywhere, only going a few blocks in any one direction. I'm still impressed with Broadway and the sheer number of 'honky-tonks' (bars with live music) and bands constantly playing in them. There have to be hundreds of different acts going at any given time and everywhere you go is crowded and loud. I was also amused by the (mostly newer, and bigger) places sponsored by a litany of country music stars: Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Kid Rock, Morgan Wallen, Blake Shelton ('Ole Red') and Luke Combs ('Category 10') are only a few I remember off the top of my head. And most of these bars have four, five, six floors with multiple acts going simultaneously. It's wild. I'm glad we explored but that's really not my scene. Especially when every drink is like $15. We flew in Friday night and had two nights out in town before the game Sunday afternoon and the flight home afterward.
For Saturday during the day I'd booked our group on some whiskey tourism. Tennessee Whiskey is a big thing, in case you (somehow) haven't heard the Chris Stapleton song or know where Jack Daniel's comes from. After considering a 'Jack and Back' tour, with the same company, I opted for what's called the Tennessee Whiskey Experience from Tennessee Whiskey Tours. For this a bus picks up a group (ours was 15) downtown, it was right around the corner from our hotel, and takes you to three distilleries between 11am and about 530pm. What's especially cool is that you don't know exactly where you'll be going, there are six different possibilities listed on the website. It ended up being a fantastic day. The slightly later start was admittedly nice too, as we stayed out way too late the previous night.
We got out of town and headed down to Williamson County. It's one of the richest counties in the country (esp considering cost of living), and, we were led to believe, where much of Nashville's rich and famous reside. Two of the three distilleries, and our lunch stop, were down that way, about 30-45 minutes from Nashville. I only bring this up because the houses, or perhaps I should call them manors, were simply outrageous. It was also enjoyable to just ride through the hilly countryside.
Our first stop was a tiny little place with the boring name of Company Distilling, in Thompson's Station. They have some outside seating, a little bar area and a small backroom where we met with a guide and saw an interesting shaped still (for gin). We got a story about how the previous long-time master distiller at Jack Daniel's had an amicable split and found his way there. He was credited with expanding the once extremely limited JD range, including to 'flavored' expressions like Honey, Fire and Apple. That influence was obvious with the spirits we tried at Company. They have a Tennessee whiskey finished with apple wood, a Bourbon whiskey finished with maple wood, a botanical gin and a no-taste vodka, and finally something coffee-flavored (I don't remember exactly). I'll say that everything screamed high quality but I didn't particularly like the goofy stuff they're doing with their whiskey. We agreed that the Tennessee whiskey (the apple one) was the best of the bunch. Overall this was the weakest stop, for one I found myself wanting to correct our guide on a few details, but mostly the rest of the day was top notch.
After a pop-in at a crossroads town for lunch, it was onto Leiper's Fork Distillery. There's a bit more of a setup here, with a couple very old buildings (distillery and visitor's center, basically) and a backyard that had some food and music and other stalls. What made this such a great stop was our tour guide (name of Christian I believe). He started at the highest level possible, explaining what whiskey is, compared to other distilled liquids, and broke down Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey (with the Lincoln County process) next. All Tennessee Whiskey qualifies as Bourbon btw. We talked about Prohibition and distilling laws in Tennessee, which only had three distilleries as recently as 2009. He went through cooking the mash, fermentation, their still setup and more. This distillery is small and open enough that they encouraged you to dip your finger in their open, wooden fermentation tanks and taste the distiller's beer (we did this at Limestone Branch in KY too). We learned about why American whiskey requires new, charred oak barrels (coopers lobbied during the Great Depression and got their jobs protected by law). Everything our guide talked about was straight-forward and simply explained, he was a total pro and I think gave the best conceptual overview of whiskey-making I've ever heard. At the tasting we tried some unaged 'white whiskey' along with another Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. We liked the Tennessee the most again, though I should note both Bourbons we tried were wheated (boo). If I had bought a bottle on this trip I would've bought from them.
Our last destination was most of the way back toward downtown, in more industrial and urban environs, called Nashville Craft Distillery. This one was off-the-wall in the best way, and we were glad it was our last stop. Unlike the other two distilleries the proprietor here, who we spent most of our time with, was not a distiller by training. He was a forensic scientist, a literal CSI-type, with a diverse wealth of scientific and historical knowledge on hand. We spent time talking about things like the accidental discovery of beer thousands of years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, and the making of Chicha, where in South American corn was chewed up, spit out and then fermented. We went through the scientific names of the raw inputs, the chemical byproducts of making the distiller's beer and most of the logistics of his operation. He was actively distilling while we were inside and telling us with specifics what was happening with the heads, heart and tails of a distilling run, for example what components in the still were turning into a gas at certain temperatures. We discussed barrel prices now versus during Covid and the frustrating relationship small makers can have with suppliers. It was all remarkably granular in detail and a good reminder there's a decent gap between the way whiskey-making is usually explained and the everything that's actually involved. There was no preset tasting at Nashville Craft. They gave us a small cocktail and the choice of any two of their spirits, which included Bourbons, a Maple flavored whiskey, honey liqueur, gins, sorghum spirits (never heard of it) and even an absinthe (needing louching). The guy's a real mad scientist if you couldn't already tell. This was a completely non-traditional visit and was such a good time, even at the end of a long day.
If you're in Nashville and like whiskey, or want to learn about it, check out the Tennessee Whiskey Experience. You get driven around and see a variety of locations, of spirits, of viewpoints. It was a fun learning experience for both my friend, who knew nothing about brown liquor beforehand, and me, who certainly does. Tbh I want to do it again, there's still three more distilleries we didn't get to see!
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