Jasper Newton Daniel registered his distillery in 1866, which makes it the oldest registered distillery in the United States, and it has made whiskey ever since in the hollow where Cave Spring, a limestone spring free of iron, comes out of the hill. Daniel's whiskey won a gold medal at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. After Tennessee went dry in 1910, his nephew Lem Motlow moved production to St. Louis, and it came back to Lynchburg in 1938. Moore County stayed dry, so for decades visitors could buy only commemorative bottles.
The company's own account now names the man who taught Daniel: Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved man who ran the still on the Reverend Dan Call's farm, where Daniel worked as a chore boy in the late 1850s. After emancipation Daniel hired Green as his first master distiller, the first known African American master distiller in the United States. Brown-Forman, which owns the brand, added Green to its tours in 2017, a year after the New York Times brought the story wide notice; the Times described it as resting on oral history and a thin archival trail. Green's sons George and Eli and later his grandsons worked here, and the company says a Green descendant has worked at the distillery ever since.
Tours cover the barrelhouse and the rickyard. The distillery's historic office and early works are on the National Register, as is Lynchburg's historic district next door.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour