Uncle Jack and Uncle Jake

In 1866, Jack Daniel registered his still with the government creating the first registered distillery in the United States. Receiving his first still from a Lutheran minister pressured to sell it by his parishioners, he set up in the purtiest little hollow in Lynchburg next to a cave spring and that's why I went there today. We went to the Jack Daniel's distillery in case you didn't get that from my story. Good tour.

Our tour guide was the archetypal Jack Daniel's employee. Rugged overalls, work boots, and a ball cap; slow, steady talk with a heavy drawl; an ease about him that made time advance only when absolutely necessary; and a direct lineage back to the original distiller himself. His great-great-grandfather was Jack Daniel's great nephew, I think. Great-great-great-great-Uncle Jack or something like that. You can see above the cave spring itself, which is where all the water is drawn for the whiskey and me, Jake Daniel with ol' Jack Daniel in front of the cave. The other pic is of the whiskey running through the still, the 5th still obviously. You can see it if you look close.

Ironically, the Distillery is in one of the few dry counties left in the country. So no matter how much whiskey they make there, they can't sell it or serve it. So at the end of the tour, a glass of lemonade (good lemonade) awaits, not whiskey. The reason the county has been dry since Prohibition is that Tennessee law requires at least 2500 registered voters to repeal the Prohibition law, but the county has never had enough people to do so.

Back in Coffee county (where we're staying). I had one Pumpkin today who didn't particularly feel like participating to the fullest. Instead of standing and moving around like all the rest, she wanted to sit on the ground and move only at a snail's pace. I asked her if there was a problem, if she was feeling well and she told me that she was hot and sweaty, which obviously impairs motion. I told her I was hot and sweaty too and she roundly denied it. I wiped my fingers across my brow causing them to glisten with a nice batch of fresh sweat to show her. She looked at them, furrowed her brow, and decisively told me, "That isn't sweat, that's grease!"

So I'm greasy, and just like Uncle Jack, I'm also and UNCLE! At approximately 9:30pm Central time, my sister delivered (via C-Section) a 9 lb 9 oz boy, Isaak Martin Hammersborg. First nephew for me, so it's very exciting. And for those of you who may criticize me for telling you all about whiskey before my nephew, I was saving the best for last. I wish I had a picture to post of little Hammersborg. I'm sure there will be one soon enough.