Cave Spring Hollow

Useful Information

photography — Bronze statue of **Jack Daniel** in front of the **Cave Spring Hollow**, Jack Daniel´s Distillery, Tennessee, U.S.A. Public Domain.

Location:	280 Lynchburg Hwy, Lynchburg, TN 37352. M24 exit Manchester, 55 through Dickel to Lynchburg. M65 exit 14 Pulaski Fayetteville, 64 through Fayetteville, turnb left on 50 to Lynchburg. (35.283681472865375, -86.36612767108277)
Open:	All year daily 9-16:30. Closed 01-JAN, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, 24-DEC, 25-DEC, 31-DEC. [2024]
Fee:	The Flight Of Jack Daniel's Tour: Adults USD 30. The Dry County Tour: Adults USD 25, Children (10-17) USD 10, Children (0-9) free. Adults USD 25. The Angel's Share: Adults USD 35. Taste of Lynchburg Tour: Adults USD 135. Discounts for Military and Seniors. [2024]
Classification:	Karst Spring
Light:	n/a
Dimension:	T=13 °C, Yavg=50 l/s.
Guided tours:	The Flight Of Jack Daniel's Tour: D=90 min, Max=20, MinAge=21. The Dry County Tour: D=70 min, Max=20, MinAge=0. The Angel's Share: D=90 min, MinAge=21. Taste of Lynchburg Tour: D=125, MinAge=21, Max=10. V=250,000/a [2022]
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Jack Daniels Destillerie, 280 Lynchburg Hwy, Lynchburg, TN 37352, Tel: +1-931-759-6357.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1846	Jack Daniel born in Lnychburg.
1875	legally registered distilling business established by Jack Daniel and Nearest Green.
1884	Jack Daniel purchases a property known as “Stillhouse Hollow” for $2,148.
1904	Old No. 7 is awarded a gold medal at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.
1941	life-size statue of Jack Daniel erected in front of the cave spring.
14-SEP-1972	distillery listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Description

Cave Spring Hollow is a karst spring which produces 50 l/s water with a temperature of 13 °C. It is located behind the office of Jack Daniel in Lynchburg, TN. If you are irritated: yes, it's that Jack Daniel, the guy after whom the most famous Bourbon Whisky of the U.S.A. is named. Actually this karst spring was the reason why Jack Daniel purchased the hollow and its surrounding land for $2,148. This sum was a fortune and an investment in a new company, the Jack Daniel Distillery. Water is needed for the production of Whisky, and so a spring is of enormous importance for a distillery. But even more important: the water was absolutely clear, there were no impurities, only a high amount of dissolved limestone. The limestone neutralizes most acids, and removes iron from the water, which would be a problem when making whiskey. Until today every bottle of Jack Daniel’s, sold anywhere around the world, was made with the water from this karst spring.

The spring not only produces water, it also produces a mysterious, whistle-like sound. Some people think there was a voice whispering, others hear a song. Actually, it is just the air, which naturally flows through the cave system to its entrance. But the marketing guys of the distillery make good use of the sound, they tell that Jack was drawn to Cave Spring Hollow because it had the same special feeling to it that he felt was in his whiskey, "a harmony he had to bottle for the world to hear". And they placed a bronze statue of Jack Daniel in front of the spring.

The place where the distillery is located is the upper end of the East Fork Mulberry Creek river. It is called a hollow, and named Stillhouse Hollow or Jack Daniel's Hollow. The spring of East Fork Mulberry Creek is called Cave Spring Hollow, although we guess the name actually means the gorge with the vertical walls in front of the spring. The river is a tributary of the Elk River. Some pages tell the cave behind the spring is 2 miles long, but we were not able to find and speleological literature on this cave. It's possible that speleologists are not allowed in the cave, as they would reduce water quality for some time. The company goes lengths to keep the water as clean as possible, which includes initiatives to protect the catchment area from any pollution. Today the water is not collected at the spring, it is collected 50 m deep inside the cave. Only the excess water thus still flows out of the resurgence.

Jasper Newton Daniel, more commonly known as Jack, was of Scots-Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent. He worked for a preacher, grocer, and distiller named Dan Call, who taught him how to run his whiskey still. However, he learned distilling from Nearest Green, a slave working for Dan Call. Nearest Green was actually the one who used sugar maple charcoalto filter the whisky, officially called Lincoln County Process, for which Jack Danials is famous under the brand name charcoal-mellowing. The two started their first distillery in 1875 with Jack's inheritance from his father. Green became the first African American master distiller in the U.S.A. They were obviously successful, because Jack Daniel was able to buy Stillhouse Hollow, the property with the karst spring in 1884 for a respectable sum. Here Jack Daniel’s Distillery was started and introduced several innovations. In the late 1890s, he chose square-shaped bottles to reflect his brand's fairness and integrity. The whisky was called Old No. 7, because seven was the number assigned to Daniel's distillery for government registration. When the registration number later changed after the federal government redrew the district, he kept the brand name of the whisky.

Until today, the distillery uses the water of the spring and produces its own charcoal from sugar maple timbers on site. They even grow the trees they need for the charcoal and the wooden barrels. Jack Daniel's Black Label Tennessee Whiskey is the best-selling whiskey in the world. But another income is the major tourist attraction the distiller has become. The visitor center was inaugurated in June 2000. It contains memorabilia related to the distillery and a gift shop. The tours include the karst spring, the whisky production, the barrel houses where the whiskey is matured, and the charcoal production. And of course, there are tours with whiskey tasting. The Dry County Tour is the family tour, as there are no whiskeys to taste. The Flight Of Jack Daniel's Tour includes five popular whiskey, the Angel's Share Tour includes tasing of several expressions from the Single Barrel Collection and two limited edition whiskeys. The Taste of Lynchburg Tour is the longest and by far the most expensive tour, and it is offered only three days of the week, It includes a distillery tour, the whisky tasting of Angel's Share Whiskeys and a noonday meal at Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House Restaurant.

But finally we have to warn. While the water from the spring is pure and healthy, alcohol destroys brain cells. We were reminded of this when we found out that the original website of the Jack Daniel Distillery has two different pages about the cave spring, which are almost identical. While this duplication is a little weird, the following was more than a little weird: the page with the heading CAVE SPRING HOLLOW has the url cave-spring, and the page with the heading THE CAVE SPRING, has the url cave-spring-hollow. Be responsible with alcohol consumption!

However, the way how alcohol consumption is handled in the U.S.A. seems quite strange to civilized countries. You are allowed to drive a car and kill people when you are 16, go to the army and fight in one of numerous wars when you are 18, but to drink a beer or a whisky you need to be 21. Even weirder are the rules in Tennessee. Moore County, where the Jack Daniel's distillery is located, is one of the state's many dry counties. So the largest distillery in the U.S.A. is located in a county where nobody, not even those over 21, is allowed to consume their product! Distilling whiskey is legal, selling it is illegal. And of course, there are exceptions: a distillery may sell one commemorative product at a time, regardless of county statutes. Tasting five different whiskeys on a tour is also allowed.