Tennessee Whiskey and More Fried Chicken

 Memphis, TN

Enjoying the smells of the barrels at Old Dominick's Distillery

Another Distillery Tour!

Remember this Tennessee Whiskey from the other day?  We found the source right downtown!  We booked a tour of the Old Dominick's Distillery.  We arrived and there was one other "on the road retired couple" with us.  The tour was great.  We got to see from the grain silo to the bottling line and everything in-between.  Every time we do a tour we learn a bit more about the process.  I will go into what we learned in the photo captions.  

Our guide was very nice and passionate about the process

One of the grains they use to make liquor, 

The 2 main grains are Corn and Rye so they are in these giant hoppers.  They come whole and get ground on premises.  

This is an empty fermentation vat.  The coils on the outside are cooling coils because the mash needs to stay at a specific temperature.  Yeast heats up as it does it's thing so they need to cool it down more than heat it up.  They do have heaters in the room for cold days.

This is what it looks like the day they put it in.  It is watery and not much is going on.

After about day 3 a crust forms and you can see bubbles and feel heat coming off the crust.  The guide asked if we wanted to taste it and let us dip our fingers in.  It seems weird to let this happen but this is all going to be distilled so contamination like this isn't a problem.  It's also picking up wild yeast from the room and everyone that goes in.

When it is almost done the curst is very thick and the bubbling stops.  At a certain alcohol level, about 6%, the yeast dies and fermentation is done.

I tasted the crust too.  It tasted like beer cereal.

After fermentation the liquid comes to the distillation room.  There are 3 stills.  One for Whiskey, one for Vodka, and one for Gin.

The Beer Well holds the liquid and then it gets pumped into the still.  When the whiskey is fully distilled its volume is reduced by about 66% by removing the water and concentrating the alcohol.

As the distillate comes out of the still it runs through these.  There is a hydrometer measuring the specific gravity to determine it is coming off at the correct alcohol percent.

This is the gin still. The steel cylinder on the right is where the botanicals are held.  The distillate passes through the botanicals before being condensed to add the gin flavor.  This is the big thing I learned on this tour.  I always thought gin was infused as a liquid but it is flavored as a vapor and then condensed.

We got to taste a few of their products and the guide put up with me asking to see and take a photo of the bottle.

There were a few others I wanted to taste that weren't offered on the tour so Donna and I split a flight.

We might come back for the crawfish boil.

Fried Chicken and Johnny Cash

After the tour we walked around downtown a little and went to Gus's Fried Chicken.  Our capacity for fried chicken is higher than BBQ I guess.  Gus's is a Memphis staple and usually packed but we got right in on a Monday at 1:30.  The food was great and the jukebox was playing Johnny Cash.  It was one of those perfect moments for the time and the place.

The Fried Chicken Excitement intensifies 

I tried the Chocolate Chess Cake.  It tasted like a really sweet brownie stuffed in a pie crust.

One of the old downtown buildings in disrepair.  Memphis hasn't fully come back yet and still has a lot of opportunity for improvement.  

That's it for today's adventure.  If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.  I failed to mention that yesterday we took the opportunity to drive by Graceland.  I think that will be enough for us.  There is a lot to see here and the Graceland tour costs way more than I am willing to pay for a tour of a 70s mansion.