As a journalist said of Pappy Van Winkle, 'You could call it bourbon, or you could call it a $5,000 bottle of liquified, barrel-aged unobtanium.' Julian Van Winkle, the third-generation head of his family's business, is now thought of as something like the Buddha of Bourbon - Booze Yoda, as Wright Thompson calls him. A bottle of the 23-year-old Pappy starts at $3000 on the internet. As Julian is the first to say, things have gone completely nuts. Forty years ago, Julian would have laughed in astonishment if you'd told him what lay ahead. He'd just stepped in to try to save the business after his father had died, partly of heartbreak, having been forced to sell the old distillery in a brutal downturn in the market for whiskey. Pappy's mission statement captured something real: 'We make fine bourbon - at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon.' But now the business had hit the wilderness years, and Julian could only hang on for dear life, stubbornly committed to preserving his namesake's legacy or going down with the ship. After the miraculous appearance of hundreds of barrels from the old distillery saved the business, he faced a new challenge when they were used up: how to preserve the taste of Pappy, the taste of his family s heritage, in a new age? The amazing Wright Thompson was invited to be his wingman as he set about to try. The result is an extraordinary testimony to the challenge of living up to your legacy and the rewards that come from knowing and honouring your people and your craft. Wright learned those lessons from Julian as they applied to the honest work of making a great bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn't help applying them to his own craft, writing, and his upbringing in Mississippi, as he and his wife contemplated the birth of their first child. May we all be lucky enough to find some of ourselves, as Wright Thompson did, in Julian Van Winkle, and in Pappyland.
ISBN: 9780735221253
Title: Penguin Press
Author: Thompson, Wright
Publisher: Penguin Press
Binding: Hardcover
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Subject: Business