Posted on 11/24/2006 9:46:54 PM PST by SmithL
LYNCHBURG, Tenn. - One of the biggest shopping days of the year is also a busy time for Jack Daniel's famous whiskey distillery and its gift shop.
Rather than fight the crowds at the mall, many people chose to kick off the holiday shopping season with a trip to Lynchburg, where the words "Black Friday" took on new meaning.
"It's Black Friday, but that's because people want the black label," said Michelle Wilson, who toured the distillery in Moore County on Friday.
The iconic black label bottles are not sold in the dry county though the state Legislature made a special exception for the distillery in 1994 that allows it to only sell commemorative bottles.
That didn't bother Wilson, 37, who bought a bottle to take back to Tallahassee, Fla., for a friend who loves the Tennessee whiskey.
The distillery typically sees about 1,200 visitors on the day after Thanksgiving, said Jack Daniel's marketer Randall Fanning.
That's more than twice the average for the holiday season, even though the distillery does nothing to specially promote the day.
One of Tennessee's top tourist attractions, the distillery saw close to 204,000 visitors last year.
"A lot of people have guests from out of town and they come here to beat the malls," Fanning said.
Asked whether she considered going to the malls instead of the distillery, Wilson said, "not on the day after Thanksgiving. ... I don't want to get near that nonsense."
Rose McCowen, 52, put it this way: "I wouldn't go to the mall if you put a gun to my head. Thank God there's an alternative."
McCowen, from Atlanta, had stopped by Lynchburg on the way to see relatives in Kentucky. At the Jack Daniel's gift shop she loaded up two bags with Christmas presents.
Jack Daniel's is "kind of a family thing" she said. It was a favorite of her father's and now her son's, too, she said.
Jack Horn, 61, of Cincinnati, was also at the gift shop Friday - the second time in three days.
He and his wife, JoLynn, 55, had stopped on the way home from a Thanksgiving visit to their son in Alabama.
"We also stopped on the way down ... but we didn't take the tour last time, nor did we buy enough," said JoLynn Horn.
Me too...but I'm drinking Jim Beam.
Btw, isn't it technically a bourbon , not a whiskey?
Jack Daniels is a Tennessee Whiskey.
Bourbon comes from Kentucky.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.