Plenty of liquor can be found in the tiny, dry town of Lynchburg, Tenn, about 70 miles southeast of Nashville. In fact, you’ll find 1.8 million barrels worth … of Jack Daniel’s, that is. Yes, there’s a plethora of liquor, but none to drink, unless you’re one of the official whiskey tasters. (Yes, this is an actual job.) Unfortunately, I wasn’t asked to stand in for anyone.

Although local liquor laws don’t allow a free taste, there are free smells. In fact, when the guide opened one of the large fermenting tanks for all of us to take a whiff, I had to stand back. “It’s enough to untie your shoes,” the guide told us at one point. I wasn’t nearly as brave as the Red Hat Society women who were also on the tour that day. For a minute, I thought one woman was going to fall in she stuck her face in so far.

But there are two good reasons that 250,000 people visit the distillery each year — it’s interesting and it’s free. The tour takes visitors around the entire Jack Daniel’s facility showing off the barrelhouse, the underground cave spring, the whiskey-making process and even the first office of Jack Daniel himself. In fact, you can take your picture with the culprit in Jack Daniel’s death — his safe. (One day when he forgot the combination, he became extremely frustrated and kicked his safe. He later suffered from gangrene due to his injury and died in 1911.)

Located up the block and right off the town square, Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House Restaurant offers a heaping lunch of fried okra, country ham, fried chicken, meatloaf, baked apples and much more. In fact, Mr. Jack Daniel himself frequented Miss Mary’s, which is now run by his great-grandniece, Lynne Tolley. Visitors are seated at large tables in different rooms throughout the home and are encouraged to get to know one another, and of course, to always pass to the left. During lunch, diners are informed on the history of the home and how one man lived 30 years in the boarding house. “If he was 96 and Miss Mary was 102,” Tolley said with a chuckle, “I think that’s pretty good recommendation for some country cookin’.”

See photos.