We are spending the next three days exploring the Nashville and Louisville area down south, and one of our first stops today was down in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where the Jack Daniel Distillery is. I’ve never been much of a whiskey person; I can appreciate it in well mixed and shaken cocktails, but I’ve never been able to fully appreciate it slowly sipped in a wide mouthed glass. Tequila has always been my liquor of choice, to the disgust of others. 🙂 Anyone who can’t appreciate a good margarita cannot be my friend.

Another reason travel is an amazing thing is that it exposes you to things you never really thought you cared for or liked. The Jack Daniel Distillery tour, thorough and scenic (complete with limestone caves — and free!) ended with a tasting of three different types of whiskey (carefully measured into one-third ounce servings to prevent any unneeded inebriation). I learned that the proper way to taste whiskey is to breathe it in with your mouth open, not closed like most of us would do. A whiskey tasting requires you to actually taste — and swallow. You can’t properly taste a whiskey and spit it out. After smelling the whiskey the “proper” way and tasting all three, I started to realize that I actually could learn to appreciate and like whiskey, neat in a glass. Maybe there are things we all like that we just never give ourselves the chance to learn to like — that is a tragedy because it only narrows our view of the world. We don’t live forever, so why should we limit our already limited life?