There’s more on offer in Atlanta this summer than just fun and games at the Olympics…Tony DeMeur samples some of the non-contact sports at the city’s sexy nightspots.
So what, you may ask, have I done to warrant a punishment like this? To be forced to watch this brazen display of pulsating naked flesh, all performed solely for me and only inches away from my cripplingly embarrassed face.
I force my gaze away in search of something more familiar and comforting, but instead I’m greeted by the vision of 14 perfectly-formed bodies all dancing slowly and deliberately in a vast circle. Almost all of them are completely naked, apart from a single garter which resembles a bulging wallet packed with $10 bills (about £7.50) that have been placed there by appreciative males.

I’m in downtown Atlanta, U.S. of A., sampling some of the alternative nightlife that will be on offer to the hordes of overseas visitors converging for the Olympic Games. And, as this city is famous for its table-dancing striptease joints, I find myself inside one of the more celebrated – The Cheetah Boutique.
The Deejay’s gruff ‘Wolfman’ – like bark announces fresh blood to the stripping circle and Russian Olga and the raven-haired, long-limbed Priscilla take the main stage between the two massive Greek God statues. The girls grind away nonchalantly while LL Cool J emits his smoky rap over the sexy-smooth funk. Even the buzz saw grunge that follows fails to disturb their matter-of-fact moves and I wonder if even The Birdie Song would make a bean’s worth of difference to their indifferent gyrations.

Cheekily, the next song is called Lay Your Hands On Me, but this practice is strictly out of bounds in this club. You can ogle as much as you like but don’t ever touch – this isn’t Las Vegas, you know. There , authentic lap dancing is a contact sport where naked lovelies do their bumps and grinds in the laps of the paying customers. But here in Atlanta it’s illegal.

NO HANKY-PANKY

Should you let loose an over-excited lunge, you’d feel the very physical presence of Guy, the muscular minder and girls’ silent protector, who likes to keep an eye on the customers’ every move. There is no after-show hanky-panky – the girls are sent straight home when they’ve done their stint.
Bill Hagood, the owner, opened his club 17 years ago and he’s pretty much retained the original look and atmosphere to this day. All animal print, chrome and black – a bit like Stringfellows but distinctly more over the top.
Away from the main room with its throbbing disco beat, there are quieter places - The Boardroom for “power undressers”, The Jailhouse, where handcuffs and a little light-hearted discipline are in order and the Shower Room, where 30 or so men watch as two girls cover each other in chocolate sauce and cream. There’s audience participation as they’re asked to chuck sponges at the girls, in the hope that they’ll stick to their ample curves.

In the VIP Room, Alison and Nicola are table-dancing , removing their micro-clothing while thrusting to the beat of the Cheetah groove. I sit with a smile frozen on my face, mouthing the odd compliment like: “That’s a strange place to have a mole” or “So where do you keep your sandwiches then?”
When Alicia has dressed again she sits down beside me and reveals that her breasts are not her only large assets. By day, the 21-year-old is a student paediatric doctor. Her earnings from table-dancing which can be $1000 a night – support her through college. “I’ve been doing this for three years,” she says. “The first couple of times were embarrassing but you get used to it. It’s very good money.” Although she gets very mixed reactions from her family, her boyfriend doesn’t mind but then “he’s a stripper, too. His job is much worse – he does hen parties and the women are much more outrageous than any of the men here.”

Makes me wonder what the two of them talk about when they get home: “What kind of day have you had, dear?” “Oh, you know, nothin’ special. Stripped off, oiled me pecs, danced about a bit.” “Me, too. Fancy getting dressed and going to bed?”
Alicia is one of the few girls in the club who hasn’t invested in silicone. “These breasts are all my own,” she says proudly. “Lots of the older girls have had implants, but I’d hate to.”

Over the next month, visitors from all corners of the globe are expected to pile into the Cheetah, flashing their wads of cash. And was Alicia looking forward to the Olympics? You bet your sweet bippy. “I’m hoping there’ll be a big rise in my bank balance,” she smiles enthusiastically.
So what of the customer? Jim Bowling is one of the Cheetah’s most loyal clients. He’s visited the club two or three times a week for the past eight years. He claims: “These girls are bright and attractive and they make very stimulating conversation.”
Jim usually goes to the main room and watches the table-dancing. But Dwight, another regular, prefers the more hands-on approach. In The Jailhouse he’s trussed up in a dog collar and led around on all fours by the knickerless Nicola. I try to get him to talk  but he just barks. Persuasive Nicola beckons me to join in and before I know it, I’m handcuffed and spread-eagled on the Punishment Wall.
The trouble with punishment is that it hurts! Several lashes later and I’m permitted my freedom, so I’m off into the heat of the Atlanta night to see what other ‘games’ are on offer. Tom, the photographer, suggests The Gold Club which sounded suitably Olympic but has nothing to do with medals. In fact, it’s decidedly down-market. The neon hubbub inside is halted temporarily by the arrival onto the cramped stage of a sorry quintet of fat boys, and in no time, a bevy of butt-naked beauties begin their humiliation of the over-burgered dupes.

At a nearby table, a John Candy lookalike hoists his t-shirt to reveal a stomach that resembles an over-inflated beach ball, raises his thumbs to his mates and leers: “Look guys! Embarrassed? Me? Nah!” But his mates’ reaction is somewhat muted – they’re all sitting in a circle tied to their chairs while the Bosoms From Hell go in for the kill.

GOTHIC SIN BIN

But silicone suffocation isn’t for me, so I move on to a sex spot that caters for more diverse tastes. The Chamber is an S & M club housed in a black barn, with several metal cages hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Behind the bars, human string beans with powder-white bodies and soot-black hair twitch to the rhythm. Mon Cherie, the proprietress, is less than athletic in black leather and studs, as she shows us round her Gothic sin bin.
Everywhere people are cracking whips of fire, and dangling above me is a woman suspended upside down from her ankles by metal chains, while a motorised grinding device crashes into her chastity belt, shooting sparks up to the ceiling. In the bondage room partners lash each other in turn, while a group in the peepshow area takes in some Victorian sadism.

Tonight is a quiet night for the S & M crowd, but they promise that things will really hot up soon when the 15-piece bondage band, The Impotent Sea Snakes, is at full volume. I’m tiring of my tour, though, and realise I’m not up to the Olympian task of coping with any more sex shows. I simply crave a quiet bar where the women keep their clothes on and I can sup a half-decent pint.

I find it. The Prince of Wales. It’s one of Atlanta’s two English pubs - the other is The Rose and Crown – and as I sink my lips into the foamy head of a Fuller’s London Pride, I cast my mind back over the whole bizarre night and I laugh myself silly.

Tenderfoot my arse. Every bit of me is tender, from my saddle-sore backside to the knee I’ve crushed against the gatepost leaving the paddock. And for this I have to get up at 4am and act like I’m having fun. Right now I’d gladly swap this parched, dry and dusty Arizona prairie for home on the range back in Tottenham (although red lizard skin boots, Stetson and Trigger might look a bit daft on the High Street).
But it’s just a temporary gripe. I might be more Charles Hawtrey in Carry on Cowboy than Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, but to be honest pardner, being in the deepest, wildest West is bloody marvellous.

And let’s face it, I’m not alone in feeling a tad out of place at The Horseshoe Ranch on Bloody Basin Road, Arizona (we might not be the real McCoy but, hey, you can’t argue with the name). With me on this first morning’s cattle drive are Doug, Debbie and their son Joshua. Doug’s an ex-social worker and church minister in Seattle, a city more famous for Kurt Cobain than cowboys. The trip to the working ranch, owned by retired engineer Dick Wilcox, is their present to Josh for his 12th birthday: “We didn’t just want to take him to a movie, we wanted to make our own movie.”
Only time will tell if this piece of escapist cinema turns out to be a comedy or a tragedy.
Right now the villain of the piece is Shorty, my horse. That’s Western humour for you – a horse called Rowdy would be a quiet beast, and Shorty, well, he ain’t. Mounting him is like slinging your leg over the Empire State, except that keeps still. No sooner have I stuffed a boot in his stirrups than Shorty decides he’s off home – and he doesn’t mean Tottenham.

Mike, a Wild Bill Hickock lookalike, and one of the three wranglers keeping a professional eye on us four saddle virgins, soon brings my charge into line. Even more reassuring, though, is that another one of the wranglers is called Jesus (if Shorty’s antics require divine intervention at least I can holler out for instant help). The third pro is 21-year-old Chris, an excellent horseman who addresses everyone as either “Sir” or “Ma’am”. Respect, that’s what me and my aching arse need.

Seven hours later – after directing around 60 head of cattle to a water hole – we dismount, groaning quietly, to inspect strained thighs and sore bums. All this, we’re now told, is a mere warm-up for the big cattle drive the next day. We are to collect strays and take them to the main 350-head herd, before driving them 12 miles across wild terrain back to the Horseshoe. There, they’ll be in grazing heaven until sold for slaughter.
Could this be enough to turn you into a breast-beating vegetarian? Well not quite. All that hard work and Western air means later this evening, massive charcoal-covered ribs are devoured noisily. Between chews, Mike regales us with tales of previous holiday guests who castrated a bunch of bulls and roasted their ‘prairie oysters’ for supper. I suddenly come over all nostalgic for the local KFC.

Next morning, we throw back mugs of pure caffeine and prepare for a long hard day in the saddle. Six new guests had arrived late the previous night: Irl and Gail Rosner and their four pals. It’s getting more like City Slickers with every twirl of my lasso. One of the new guys – a surgeon with a constantly harassed expression – has his mobile phone glued to his ear. “One of my patients,” he explains, “isn’t doing so well. I wish I hadn’t called, I’ll only worry now and spoil my trip.”
We’re joined by serious-looking dudes led by the charismatic Dean Cameron – former owner of The Horseshoe – with sidekicks Bob and Jeffrey. There’s a touch of Steve McQueen about Dean: narrow ice-blue eues, quietly dignified. As the sun begins to warm the land, we set off for the day’s doggie chasing. And today is going to be a good day, because joining our party is Charlotte, Dick’s 24-year-old daughter, a wrangler par excellence and Calamity Jane to my Desperate Dan. At dawn I’m already impressed with her rising trot, but by the afternoon, when she’s killed a four-foot rattlesnake with a rock and held it high for my camera, I’m totally rapt.

“You’re too close! You’ll scare ’em!” yells Bob, as we approach the collective posteriors of several hundred heifers. No allowances are made for we amateurs. I lead Shorty further out, and Jeffrey offers me a chew. Expecting something minty and refreshing, I’m horrified as he produces a small plug of sooty-looking black substance. In Tottenham this would merit a stop ‘n’ search from the local rozzers. But this is more potent than any street-dealin’ drug. It’s chewing tobacco. It would be impolite to refuse, so I take a pinch, squeeze it into a messy wad, and pack it between my lower lip and gum . The sensation is like inhaling a complete pack of 20 Capstan Full-Strength in one go.  My brain leaps into overdrive while my belly badly wants to bale out. Jeffery laughs and urges me not to swallow. As if I would.
“You’ll git sick,” he informs me. “Jest spit it.” A thin stream of inky-black sputum emanates from his mouth in demonstration. When he’s not looking I remove the sodden lump, but still pretend it’s there by throwing him “Mmmm-lovely” looks.

Bob gallops up and introduces me to his dog, Ringer – half mongrel, half coyote: “Dog part’s real good at rounding up the runaways, but the Coyote part wants to eat ‘em.” Bob – who resembles Kenny Rogers – implores me not to write about his ‘cussing’, which is strange since everything that comes out of his mouth is pure Western innocence. He even winces occasionally at some of my colloquialisms. “Easy boy,” says his expression, “there’s lay-deez present!”
Get him on to citified pretend-cowboys – fake spurs and neckerchiefs – and Bob smiles and shakes his head. “Next time you see one of those guys with a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate,” he wryly remarks, “just tell him it’s a tombstone for a dead dick.” Dean trots over and directs us to leave the herd and move nearer the ranch. At times, I’m riding perilously across streams, rocks and boulders at 45-degree angles, until we reach the ridge of a massive hill. Any pain is suppressed by the glory of the views and the success at rounding up these errant cows.

I feel I’ve shed my city skin, swapped the closed-in complexity of London for a vast panoramic freedom. In fact, we’ve all done more than that – we’ve dipped a soft city toe into dirt-kicking, macho existence. It feels reeeeal good.
It’s so simple for Christ’s sake. A horse, a hat, a pair of boots a few plaid shirts, and that’s it. A pick-up could carry your whole life and  leave enough space for a small cocktail cabinet.

But maybe I’m so taken because I’m just a temporary visitor. Long term, I suspect it’s not a career prospect for yours truly. I might envy the cowboy’s terrain – their vast skies and long-limbed cacti – but it’s lowly paid and utterly solitary.
At the end of the ride, we’re positioned at the vita; points to prevent the cows filtering off. Finally we head them all into the corral, bristling with pride at Bob yells the magic words: “Good work, cowboys!”

All this is definitely not me. No way. Where I come from, the sky is small, grim and grey – nothing like the super-economy-size, bluer-than-blue affair that they have here. And I usually consider leather stirrups and cracking bullwhips to be strictly the province of Cabinet Ministers.
So what in tarnation is a bloke whose idea of breakfast TV is Pebble Mill at One doing tucking into a T-bone at a time when I would normally be tucked up in my pyjamas?
What I am doing is spending four bizarrely glorious days at the Lazy K Bar – just a few miles out of Tucson, Arizona – and dang my hide if it ain’t a sight more purdy than Tottenham, my usual territory

It's the lure of the Old West, the rolling tumbleweed, the smell of old leather, the feel of rope biting into your hand. It's where men are men - and, for the short time they are here, women are too.
It's a dude ranch - and, incredibly, it's a package holiday.
It soon becomes evident, however, that this is no fly-by-night affair, thrown together to cash in on the success of Billy Crystal's movie, City Slickers.

The Lazy K Bar first opened its swing doors to guests back in 1936 and now, celebrating its 60th year, it's still doing great business.
It has just 23 rooms, giving it an altogether cosier feel than other, much bigger ranches.
You sleep in single-storey outhouses, redeemed inside by many of the accoutrements of a decent hotel; you eat in a spacious diner and you help yourself to drinks in the bar. Among the outdoor activities on offer are lassoing, hay rides, trap-shooting (clay pigeons), hiking, biking, picnic rides and line dancing.
But this is a ranch and it is mainly about horses - and, indeed, riding horseback is really the only way to take in the spectacle of the awesome terrain.

The good news is that both the experienced and the inexperienced can get a ride. Even if, like me, you are a 'greenhorn' they'll find a horse to suit - though Western riding is very different from British 'posting' style. For a start, you sit full in the saddle, which can wear out your thighs. And the horse's patience. So a video is available to those who need help to adjust.
Not that any amount of teaching prepares you for all eventualities. After a couple of hours of trying to steer my wilful across a massive sheer escarpment, I hear that familiar sound I'd heard in a thousand cowboy flicks... the clicking of the rattlesnake.
Our trusty scout informs me not to 'rile'im'. That he's more scared of me than I am of him. Maybe he is, but I'm not ready to test the theory - and give the snake the widest of wide berths.

After the long haul back to base, we are all more than ready to tuck into fresh salads with melon, catfish, and Ma's all-American apple pie.
I had wondered who my fellow travellers would be. Kindred spirits, home on the range, had seemed unlikely. But as it turned out, they were there. It quickly became apparent that it is not essential to be part of a couple to enjoy the place. I met many single people, some middle-aged and many of them women, who seemed to be having a ball.
Obviously there were couples too, and I started chatting to a pair from San Diego.
Mike is a bright and Hollywood-handsome ex-polo player now running his own sports clothing business; Alison, his wife, is a stunningly beautiful public relations manager.
After the meal, during our 'happy hour' conflab, it transpires that Mike is the proud possessor of the first album of a band that I was in many moons past - The Fabulous Poodles. I glow a little as we manfully bond on the patio, exchanging dubious jokes and howling into the night like two flea-bitten hyenas.

Next morning, over a perfectly prepared Denver omelette (everything in it and lots of eggs), Mike says he is driving to Tombstone for the 'Wyatt Earp Days' weekend and invites me along for the ride.
It's only an hour away - and how could I miss seeing 'The Town Too Tough To Die'?
Tombstone is the most renowned of Arizona's old mining camps, though now more like a down-at-heel, low-rent Disneyland. Locals dress  up in a poor polyester approximation of the 'bad 'ol days' and weave up and down the High Street, while life-size plastic effigies of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp slouch in seats to a bland voice-over emitting their story.
Not so much the 'OK Corrall' as the 'Sort-of-all-right-if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing Corral'.

After paying our respects to whatever is buried under the stones on Boot Hill, we gratefully returned to the Lazy K Bar for titanic T-bones, grilled in the open air by the pool.
Mike, Alison and I then adjourned to the bar for belated aperitifs and continue the process outside on the patio to the strains of a local country singer.
With great sincerity he lassos the 'bleeding heart' songs of Don Williams and Willie Nelson, plugs 'em full of holes, then leaves them for the buzzards.
I then put the fear of the Lord into him by offering my Frank Ifield impersonation on harmonica - before we all realise the beers and copious single malts have wreaked havoc enough, and make falteringly for our beds.

At 7.30 am over wood-smoked ham and hash browns, I'm feeling a little smug. Mike is just feeling terrible. 'Amateur', I cannot stop myself from thinking. Where hedonism is concerned, you have to put the hours in.
After another arduous horse-ride, around the remains of an old film studio responsible for celluloid landmarks like Bonanza, Cheyenne and Bronco, I try trap shooting. Great fun made all the greater when I nearly shoot the launcher of the targets.
And thus I come to throw myself into my last activity - the evening hayride. This, to put it accurately, is a hay-filled cart filled with people-old-enough-to-know-better being smashed around in ungainly fashion while the horses pretend not to know where they're going. Like London cabs really.

Back at the ranch I bid farewell to new chums and helpful staff and prepare for my impossibly early alarm.

I know that across those vast skies the proud towers of Broadwater await my return.

As I take a last look at the panoramic sky, Dorothy's words in the Wizard of Oz, or something like them come to mind, 'I don't think we're in Tottenham now, Toto'.

You wake, temples pounding, the taste of stale whisky on your lips and the first sight that greets your blood-streaked eyes is thick black bars on the windows, and you wonder what kind of godless state you’ve got yourself into this time. Fear not. The state is Kentucky and in all probability you’ll be wallowing in the Spartan splendour of the Colonial Room in The Jailer’s Arms, Bardstown.

Originally it was The Nelson County Jail, temporary home to many a grizzled old varmint – including Jesse and the James Gang – but now it functions as a bed & breakfast. But, this being America, those words ‘bed’ and ‘breakfast’ take on a whole different dimension. Unlike Mrs Hargreaves’s in Morecombe, you’ll find the ‘County Jail’ t-shirts, Christmas cards and postcards, barbecue sauces; you can even buy a fridge magnet of your room. All this for only 40 dollars a night.

Bardstown is pretty, clean and thoroughly Southern with its picket fences and the imposing red courthouse set slap-bang in the middle of the town square, still flying ‘Old Glory’ in a Merle Haggard kind of way.
This is the home of the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival and it’s time to explore this brown nectar. America, overly-sensitive to the fact that it doesn’t have a history that goes back much farther than last Wednesday-fortnight, tends to over-achieve in the naming stakes – hence the ‘Ancient Age’ distillery on the  Kentucky River, Frankfort.
Their Blanton single barrel is 102 proof and the Gold Label sells for a wallet-wincing $60; it’s particularly in demand in Japan where they are prepared to pay 6500 yen for the pleasure of brandishing this alcoholic status symbol.

Heaven Hill is the last surviving family business in Kentucky whisky. Vice President Max Shapira, sports the horn-rims of Phil Silvers and, in his charcoal three-piece, looks sharp as a mosquito’s toenail. He takes us through all the stages in distillation: 80 per cent corn, 10 per cent rye and 10 per cent barley malt form what’s called a “beer”, which ferments in vast wooden vats and is then distilled in copper colander towers until the “white dog” is formed – a clear, almost tasteless spirit of brain-rotting strength. This is then poured into white oak barrels which have been fired, and the one-eighth-of-an-inch charcoal is what gives the finished Bourbon its characterful colour and flavour. Ah.

At last it’s time for a tasting. From a light four-year-old Heaven Hill through an eight-year Evan Williams to the 18 year-old Elijah Craig, named after the Reverend Elijah Craig, who is credited with being the father of Bourbon. In 1789, the year that Mr and Mrs Washington hung up their his ‘n’ hers towels in the White House bathroom, he set up a little corn whisky distillery in Bourbon county. A fire broke out in the open-rick barrelhouse, and the frugal Baptist used these charred containers to historic effect. Thanks, Rev.

This tasting is common courtesy in Nelson County, but bizarrely enough, 70 per cent of Kentucky is made up of dry counties, so you have to travel outside before you can wet your whistle. All this dates back to Prohibition, a concept of such mind-boggling madness that it’s hard to believe its reverberations are still being felt 60 years on.
Although the banning of alcohol had been going on for some years, state by state, it wasn’t until 1920 that it reached its nadir nationwide. The wild-eyed battleaxe-wielding maiden aunt of sobriety, Carrie Nation, had had her way and won her hard-fought battle against “distilled death and liquid damnation”.
By the time Franklin D Roosevelt had repealed the law, it was too late for a lot of the whisky companies. Thirteen years of dilapidation of materials, warehouses and all the machinery of the trade had taken its toll and it’s only in very recent years that Bourbon has regained its respect and self-esteem. Before prohibition, most distilleries were to be found in North Carolina, but now it was Kentucky’s turn.

It’s a warm, late September evening and an invitation has arrived to attend a cook-out and tasting at the home of Booker Noe, Bardstown’s Buddha of Bourbon, and grandson of Jim Beam. It is a house you could not easily miss.
A huge, white mansion with pillars in the porch and the obligatory flags at half-mast. A pretty and accommodating Kathleen takes us proudly through several very fine, small batch Bourbons, courtesy of the Jim Beam organisation. Basil Hayden’s first: a light-bodied, smooth eight-year-old and, at 80 proof, a pussycat in such wayward company. Baker’s is aged seven years and hand-bottled at 107 proof, using a 60 year-old yeast process, making for a mellow, ruminative tipple, preferably taken with a splash of spring water. Anything called Knob Creek might bring out the gigglesome schoolboy in this Englishman but, snickers abated, this one proved to be more mature than the drinker.  A darker, sweeter, 100 proof nine-year-old that hangs mustily around the back of the nostrils – fine, but no match for the crowning glory of the tasting: Booker’s.

Emeritus Booker Noe is a huge man in his mid-sixties, cast in the mould of Tennessee William’s Big Daddy or, indeed, ol’ Colonel Harland Sanders himself, and his Bourbon is straight from the barrel, 127 proof and eight years old, uncut and unfiltered, and definitely not the whiskey to gulp back. Dilution is essential. At 50 bucks a throw, this is not the brew for Bowery bums. But, hey, we have to pay for our pleasures. and Booker’s is surely the finest sourmash you ever will taste.
The Southern Breakfast is a wonder to behold: wild mushroom omelette, fried potatoes, rocket salad, strawberries, honeydew melon and a petunia – and all on the same plate! Suitably stuffed, the road to Nashville awaits and the tasting of Tennessee whiskies.

The Opryland is more a city than a hotel, with 5000 rooms and a new wing under construction for an extra 1500. The ease with which you can get utterly and completely lost is apparent as bemused residents, pouring over their hotel maps, bump into each other in desperate attempts at finding the lobby. The first thought upon entry to the immense atrium is that this place loves water – hell, it’s darn near drowning in the stuff. There’s a river that weaves around the inside of the place and in the Cascade Conservatory and you can experience The Dancing Waters, who sound like a ballroom dancing duo from Auckland but are, in fact, powerful jets that shoot up through the floor and which, with the aid of computer technology, are illuminated by a barrage of lighting effects.
And just as you’re thinking “yeah, well so what” this lone moustachioed figure appears on a balcony pounding pompous arpeggios on a baby grand while a massive scarlet spout shoots a hundred feet into the air and you find yourself thinking that the Opryland is the Kitsch Kapital of the World.

It’s seven o’clock and the telephone’s mugging my dream. “Hi, this Porter Wagoner with your early morning wake-up call. Y’all have a nice day.” Shucks, I’m humbled. An icon of Country Music has got up especially to awaken lil’ ol’ limey, tea-bag me. But, wait: “hi, this is Porter Wagoner etc.” Damn. A tape.

It’s an hour and quarter to Lynchburg, home to – no, silly, not David or, indeed, Kenny but – the Jack Daniels distillery. The wryly laid-back Carl is our tour guide, a walking sandwichboard of sew-on patches, buttons and homespun philosophies. Outrageously, the world’s best-known sourmash whisky is housed in a pretty hollow in a county that’s been ‘dry’ for 86 years. One Friday per month the staff get given a free bottle; they call it ‘Good Friday’. Followed by ‘Bad Saturday’, I’ll warrant.

The principal difference between Tennessee whisky and its Kentucky cousin is the filtering process at the final stage. Bourbon doesn’t see the need for this purification, whereas JD and other like George Dickel, another exceptional single-barrel, are filtered twice through sugar maple charcoal, As Carl leads the way through the powerfully pungent smell of the ‘beer’ fermenting he makes a useful suggestion: “Walk slow an’ breathe deep – sometimes I do the tour all by m’sel’”.

The story of Jack Daniels, the man, has an almost biblical resonance. He was the young apprentice to Dan Caul, a Lutherian preacher who started making whisky in 1866 but, deciding that he’d prefer to follow the Path of the Lord, he sold his still to Jack for $25, who moved it five miles over the hill near to the creek. The story goes that some years later a somewhat inebriated Mr Daniels decided to do his accounts in the early hours of the morning, couldn’t call the safe combination to mind and, in a blind rage, kicked the safe door. Two weeks later he was dead from a blood clot.

Even after seven days, soaked Bourbon and its history, this seems like a suitably contemporary parable for us all. Here endeth the lesson.