As soon as we landed in Huntsville, Alabama - Wayne and I packed up the car and headed for Tennessee. We were bound for the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg. The short drive up was pretty - Lynchburg is set in the gentle slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. Jack Daniels built his distillery in Lynchburg in 1866 at the mouth of the Cave Spring - a natural spring that flows at 800 gallons per minute and a constant temperature of 56 degrees. The water is just one local ingredient of the whiskey: the taste of Jack Daniel's is also influenced by the filtering of the whiskey through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal (charcoal which is created right on the premises from trees harvested locally). Though the distillery creates the entire supply of Jack Daniel's, it remains a surprisingly small and craftsman-like operation.
With the statue of the diminutive distiller himself, Jack Daniels, that guards the mouth of the cave from which the spring springs
Our guide took us through the entire operation step by step. We began in the yard where dried sugar maple is burned into charcoal and then went to the mouth of the cave for which Cave Spring is named. We followed the path of the water to the mash tanks where the grains and yeast are added and the cooking begins. We then saw several of the stills in action and watched as the clear whiskey is dripped into 10' tanks of charcoal for mellowing before it is put into oak barrels for aging. The barrels are then stored in barrel houses until the whiskey is judged to be ready by a team of tasters. For the black labeled bottle that is synonymous with Jack Daniel's, whiskey from many barrels (and many locations from within the barrel house) is blended together. (Whiskey aged at the top of the barrel house is darker in color and more intense in flavor than whiskey aged in the lower levels of the barrel house.) The distillery also produces a single barrel whiskey (usually from a barrel from the upper level of the house that is judged to be superior tasting by the tasting panel) and Gentleman Jack (which is dripped through the charcoal a second time after barrel aging and before bottling).
It is the oak barrel that imparts all of the color and much of the flavor to Jack Daniel's whiskey. Here, Wayne sniffs the "bunghole" (the actual term) of one of the used barrels.
In the barrel house
I'm not a huge fan of Jack Daniel's, but the tour was fascinating. The people who create the product obviously take great pride in their work and the product is beloved. Most interesting of all, though, was the fact that Moore County, of which Lynchburg is the county seat, is a dry county and probably will remain so for the foreseeable future. (According to Tennessee law, 1,000 residents must sign a petition to put the question to a vote and there must be 2,500 registered voters in the county: Moore County has less than 6,000 men, women and children - making such a vote unlikely. Besides, doesn't it make the whole legend of Jack Daniel's more interesting, anyway?) This also meant that despite Jack Daniel's being the major industry and tourist draw, one can't buy a bottle of the whiskey! (Tennessee actually passed a special law allowing the distillery to sell a specially bottled whiskey in the gift shop.)
Back in Huntsville, the major industry is not whiskey production, but space travel. Redstone Arsenal was created in the run up to World War II as a production and storage facility for chemical weapons and all sorts of nasty chemicals. Following the war, the facility was briefly offered for sale until the Army began using the grounds for the testing of rock propulsion. Several German scientists, lead by Werner Von Braun, were brought to Huntsville in the years around the Korean War and it was here the American space program was developed. Today, Huntsville is home to the Marshall Space Flight Center and all manner of defense and space contractors. It is home to the famed Space Camp and a big NASA visitors' center.
The civic center in Huntsville is named for Werner Von Braun!
It contains not only the Concert Hall (where Spamalot performed, but a convention center, arena and smaller playhouse).
Roy and I visited on Friday. We explored models of the space shuttle, actual Apollo capsules and pieces of the international space station. We marveled at an actual Saturn rocket displayed in an enormous hall and a 363' model that towers over the center. The courage of the early astronauts who allowed themselves to be strapped to these gigantic machines and shot into the unknown astonishes me. Indeed, the courage of all the men and women who go into space continues to astonishes me. There are memorials to the crews of both the Challenger and Columbia as well as a full size mock-up of the shuttle named Pathfinder. (Pathfinder was built as a training simulator and to check the fit of various pieces.)
The Rocket Park outside the Marshall Space Flight Center - while all of these are imposing machines (and many of them are frightening military implements), they are nothing compared to the Saturn rocket.
Roy and Pathfinder.
The space shuttle program will come to an end in 2010 and will be replaced by a reusable system of rockets and parachuting capsules (much like those used in the Apollo missions) that will be capable of returning men to the moon and, theoretically, to planets beyond.
I had several tasty meals in Huntsville. Surprisingly, Ken joined Karl and I for barbeque at Dreamland (an Alabama institution). Roy and I sought out a local favorite, Gibson's, for another helping of barbeque. Between shows on Sunday, several of us went for a very nice German meal at Ol Heidelberg Cafe: the German influence is still strong in the area!
I took advantage of the comparatively warm temperatures in Alabama to get outside. I drove up into the mountains to do a bit of hiking at Monte Sano State Park. Monte Sano is the former sight of a resort that capitalized on the mountain's cool breezes and advertised itself as a sort of healthy retreat. I hiked for about five miles around the relatively flat top of the mountain. The vistas across Huntsville and the surrounding Tennessee Valley were quite pretty and the opportunity to just be outside was a welcome change from the colder climates the tour's been in lately.
One of the many dramatic lookouts from Monte Sano
The weather in Huntsville wasn't as warm as many of the Spamily had hoped. It made it up into the 70's one afternoon, but many of the days were in the 50's. While that was certainly preferable to the below zero temperatures we endured in Peoria and even some of the snowy days in Detroit, many people imagined traveling to the South and wearing shorts all week. The seasonal change of clothes began in Huntsville, though. The following week we were bound for Florida, so everyone put away their winter coats and pulled out some shorts. I was no exception and my poor trunk and I battled mightily to swap bulky sweaters for short-sleeved shirts.
When I took this photo, I was obviously loosing the battle. I ended up jumping on the lid to get it latched. (In a side note: I'm rapidly running out of sticker space on my trunk. There's a souvenir from every stop on the tour affixed to the thing - I'm pretty proud of it. I keep threatening to quit when I run out of space...)
I hosted shot night in Huntsville. Given my visit to Jack Daniel's, I wanted to use the local spirit. I combined Jack Daniel's with Southern Comfort and christened it: "Son of the South". It was a strong shot, so I offered lime juice to dilute it a bit. I also composed a playlist of Alabama related tunes (Alabama's "Song of the South" and "Mountain Music"; "Stars Fell on Alabama", "Alabama Getaway", "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Dueling Banjos"). Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we got a head start on the party the local presenter through in our honor.
I'm all set up for shot night
When Merle Dandridge joined our company as The Lady of the Lake, she brought a tradition with her from Broadway: the Sparkle Cup. Saturday night is often a tough show for the cast to get energized for - it's late in the week, the second show of a two show day and the day off is still two shows away. Some actors describe Saturday as your average workers' Wednesday. To help remedy this, the Broadway company came up with a Saturday night competition: each company member is meant to give a little something extra on Saturday night (some sparkle) and whichever company member is judged to have given the most extra somethin' somethin' is awarded the Sparkle Cup and given the task of judging the next week's competition. While I have not, yet, won a Sparkle Cup; I did receive an honorable mention in Huntsville's competition.
Here I am with my sparkly certificate
I hear you asking, dear reader, what I did to win my honorable mention. Well...
I did something a little like this.
During You Won't Succeed on Broadway the ensemble men do some big "Russian" leaps. This is my attempt at one of those jumps. Apparently, a fat guy jumping is sparkly. I'm very proud.
In addition to the dream realized that was my Sparkle Award, I finally got to try on the Black Knight costume! At the load-in, the local dressers need to learn how to help dress the actor in the costume and how the mechanics of that costume work. Someone has to be the model for the costume demo - in Huntsville it was me! It was super fun to wear the costume, but I can't imagine operating all the mechanics while performing fight choreography.
JV as the Black Knight
Huntsville was a surprise. I had no idea what to expect from the Rocket City, but I found it quite nice. While the downtown wasn't very busy, it was exceptionally clean and pretty. All over the place were little gardens bearing plaques about downtown beautification. The Five Points neighborhood had all kinds of historic structures and the area near the hotel was full of great big Civil War-era homes. I was glad I rented a car so I could get out and see the surrounding area. I enjoyed the mountains and the Southern hospitality.
TVFMHRW - Across the Holiday Inn parking lot was Big Springs Park
JV
P.S. - The tour's in what feels like a home stretch now. We're all counting down to our adventures in Alaska and then our long California run beginning in San Francisco (much as we counted down to Vancouver, earlier). To celebrate, David and I made some stickers:
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