(FORTUNE Magazine) – A riverboat chugs down the Cumberland River, past downtown Nashville, on a breezy Monday night. Men in tuxedos and women in evening dresses gather on deck, clinking glasses, waiting for the five-course dinner. There's jazz in the background, perfect red roses all around. And it's all about Jack Daniel's.

Now, a lot of people have inelegant Jack Daniel's stories to tell. Mine involves four hours of karaoke and two days of hangover. But this--the first biannual meeting of the Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Society--clearly has aspirations. It's a two-day gathering for the 500 or so people who have bought entire barrels of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel. Single Barrel whiskey is specially selected by Jack Daniel's Lynchburg, Tenn., staff for its color, body, and flavor. While aging, it's separated from the rest of the stock; then the barrel is sold (for about $8,500), and the whiskey (94 proof) is bottled for the buyer.

Brown-Forman, the Kentucky-based beverage group that owns Jack Daniel's, is hosting the event because most of the people who buy Single Barrel--bar owners, liquor store owners, hoteliers--are in the business. The company wants to keep them excited about moving its booze. Hence the starlit river cruise, the two country-music concerts (Chely Wright, BR5-49), and the loads of corporate freebies--bottles of Single Barrel, as well as Jack Daniel's ties, cummerbunds, cuff links, and swizzle sticks.

As I step onto the boat, someone hands me a whiskey sour. I sip daintily, eat a few hors d'oeuvres, start circulating. One of the first people I meet is Tony Abou-Ganim, the beverage specialist at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He oversees 160 bartenders, and one way to keep the staff serious, he thinks, is to get them involved in inventing new cocktails. He's already created one with Single Barrel--the Tennessee Highball. "It adds attraction," he says, "when the bartender can grab the bottle and say, 'This is hand selected.' If you drink Single Barrel at the Bellagio, you won't have anything like it anywhere else."

"Um, I'm really feeling my drink here," I say, in a sad effort to respond. "It's really strong! I need to eat more or something."

Abou-Ganim, ever professional, tries to help. "You should be drinking Gentleman Jack," he advises. Gentleman Jack is filtered twice through massive charcoal filters, and it's only 80 proof. Someone else--who was it?--nods in agreement.

I never get to it, though. At dinner, there are five glasses: one for water, two for wine, one snifter with a shot of Single Barrel (it smells heavenly!), one for after-dinner liqueur. I start working on the Single Barrel. Chely Wright sings, the dinner ends. Later, up in the hotel hospitality suite, people in various stages of black-tie deterioration rage on, setting up and knocking over pyramids of plastic tumblers. One guy has taped a wet paint sign to his nametag.

The next day we make the pilgrimage to Lynchburg for VIP tours of the distillery. The couple next to me at breakfast, liquor store owners from Colorado, seem amazingly perky. "We don't drink," they say. "We used to, but we got sick of it."

Our bus stops at the minuscule main square so we can shop for souvenirs, but a lot of folks just look for hangover relief. I get some water; Abou-Ganim from the Bellagio picks up a vanilla malt; a writer from San Francisco goes off in search of a bagel.

Next is the museum and distillery tour. We see corn mash ferment. We see raw whiskey drip through ten-foot-tall charcoal filters. We see barrels aging in warehouses. We see an outfit Jack used to wear. People pose next to a life-sized statue.

The highlight is a tasting seminar with Jimmy Bedford, Jack Daniel's master distiller. In addition to overseeing the distillery, he seems to carry the entire branding effort on his shoulders. He poses for ads, and he travels all over, promoting products. Bedford also stars in the film shown in the Jack Daniel's Museum, driving an old red truck through the sun-kissed hills.

Everyone has his own way of paying homage to JD. Mike Milinkovic, a liquor store owner from Geelong North, Australia, has brought his wife and two daughters along with him. It's their first visit to the States. Russell Shaw, who owns a liquor store on the border of a dry county in Arkansas, sold his entire barrel in 16 days. That's a record, he thinks. Brown-Forman salesman Mike DiGiovanni has a swimming pool that's shaped like a Jack Daniel's bottle pouring into a glass.

And then there's Jeff, whose company operates school buses in Minnesota. Jeff collects rare JD bottles and barrels. He bought the last barrel produced in 1999. "It's the cornerstone of my collection," he says. Jeff asks that I not print his last name, because he's concerned people will recognize him, figure out where he's stashed his barrel, and steal it. He tries to talk me out of my bottle of Single Barrel because, together with his, it would make a set, and he "collects in twos."

After we get back from Lynchburg, my headache finally begins to fade. I get to sit next to Jimmy Bedford at dinner, and I watch him work it all night--making announcements on each of the four buses, introducing the band, signing nametags rock-star style. He drinks his Single Barrel; I work on three waters and a coffee.

"Sorry I'm so quiet tonight," I say sheepishly.

Bedford laughs. "Oh, I'm grateful for it," he says. And the master distiller gives me a kindly pat on the back. I love that guy.

To buy a Single Barrel (240 bottles), call 615-340-1033.