I went up to Nashville again last weekend and gave recurrent checkrides to four of our pilots (based in Atlanta, Bristol, Birmingham and Mobile). It was another one of those whirlwind trips: I had to give an initial checkride on Friday morning and then I flew up to BNA Friday afternoon. I gave the recurrents on Saturday and Sunday and then flew back to Orlando on Monday morning -- where I had a new ground school waiting and ready to start at 1 P.M. I had to get up at 4 to leave the hotel by 5 to be at the airport by 6 to take off by 7 . . . ugh.
Anyway, as it happened, three of the recurrents were on Sunday, leaving only one on Saturday. That left me a few free hours, so I drove out to see the George Dickel distillery. It was amazing. Cascade Hollow is the ultimate small Tennesee town. To get there, you leave the Interstate on US 41. Then you leave US 41 on a smaller side road, then take a smaller road, then an even smaller road after that until eventually you are going down something that I would barely describe as two lanes -- more like a lane and a half, with trees growing densely on both sides.
The entire distillery staff consists of only 30 people. The tour was free, and very interesting.
Let me give you an example of the care these people take in making their whisky. (They spell it "whisky" with a Y instead of "whiskey" with an EY because they compare it to Scotch whisky rather than Irish whiskey.)
They harvest Tennessee sugar maples during the winter "when the sap is lowest," as our tour guide explained. They cut them into 2"x2"x4' segments at their own sawmill, hand-stack them into carefully constructed ricks and then burn them in the open so that the impurities can escape with the smoke. AND THAT'S JUST TO MAKE THE CHARCOAL THAT FILTERS IT!
Anyway, I was impressed. It was also quite fascinating to me that the distillery was surprisingly non-commercial. No one even tried to sell me anything. There was a gift shop, of course, with a bored-looking local girl behind the counter, but there was no pressure to actually purchase the stuff they were offering.
I have yet to try George Dickel Tennessee Whisky.
Anyway, as it happened, three of the recurrents were on Sunday, leaving only one on Saturday. That left me a few free hours, so I drove out to see the George Dickel distillery. It was amazing. Cascade Hollow is the ultimate small Tennesee town. To get there, you leave the Interstate on US 41. Then you leave US 41 on a smaller side road, then take a smaller road, then an even smaller road after that until eventually you are going down something that I would barely describe as two lanes -- more like a lane and a half, with trees growing densely on both sides.
The entire distillery staff consists of only 30 people. The tour was free, and very interesting.
Let me give you an example of the care these people take in making their whisky. (They spell it "whisky" with a Y instead of "whiskey" with an EY because they compare it to Scotch whisky rather than Irish whiskey.)
They harvest Tennessee sugar maples during the winter "when the sap is lowest," as our tour guide explained. They cut them into 2"x2"x4' segments at their own sawmill, hand-stack them into carefully constructed ricks and then burn them in the open so that the impurities can escape with the smoke. AND THAT'S JUST TO MAKE THE CHARCOAL THAT FILTERS IT!
Anyway, I was impressed. It was also quite fascinating to me that the distillery was surprisingly non-commercial. No one even tried to sell me anything. There was a gift shop, of course, with a bored-looking local girl behind the counter, but there was no pressure to actually purchase the stuff they were offering.
I have yet to try George Dickel Tennessee Whisky.