Pappyland - A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and Things that Last

The Bonnie Lea Book Club embraced a book fitting for a quick but memorable spring read. The core theme was Julian Van Winkle and his product Van Winkle bourbon, the most sought after spirit in America today. Jeff joined us via Zoom, enjoying his own Van Winkle 15.

The book included multiple themes beyond bourbon as revealed in the sub-title, family and things that last among them. Julian’s story of rescuing a family business through hard work, dedication, and a little bit of luck was central. Pete, Bill and Geoff concurred as their families’ intergenerational businesses were among things that last, for a while anyway. Name, tradition, and honor are powerful forces: “Strive to be ancestors, not ghosts, to our children and their children.”

Wright Thompson’s addition of his own family’s experience to the book was viewed as opportunistic or worse, by most members. It’s uncommon and unusual literary technique for any biographer to add perspective on the character by using his own personal experience as a point of reference. Only I disagreed. I felt the relationship between author Wright Thompson and subject Julian Van Winkle was substantial enough to merit inclusion. For me, that relationship made Julian – whom we all agreed would be a great guy to share a bottle of fine bourbon with – more approachable and human.

The relationship did weave to the South. We learned, or re-learned, that Kentucky was a Northern state in the Civil War; and yet its history of relative isolation, the strong pull of states rights, and the Confederate attachment to its own history draws Kentucky culturally more to the South today. Thompson is from Mississippi, taking us to his own family’s connection to land, to the hardships evoked through the Delta Blues, and the emerging reconciliation with its own past . Some felt this was unnecessary filler; I disagreed again, believing the family theme was enhanced by exploring the Southern connection. Rick reminded us how pleasantries visitors experience down South may evaporate when visitors decide to stick around. Not everything is as it appears.

As the book is about the most sought after bourbon in the world, we learned a few things about that spirit. Interestingly, an early American regulation made bourbon uniquely American ; tradition has made it uniquely Kentuckian. Its emergence in America is illustrative of free market forces and reflective of American ingenuity. In Europe, harvest excess often became the property of the rulers; American entrepreneurs discovered a way to preserve an otherwise wasting asset: convert it to whiskey! Rob brought a bottle of 1792, which, according to the marketing team, uses George Washington’s personal recipe for the whiskey he made from his farm’s excess corn, wheat and rye. (The 1792, by the way, clocks in at 125 proof, but you’d never know it. It is a magnificent whiskey, worth the relatively high cost.)

Bourbon must be made from over 50% corn in its mash. Many bourbons use rye as the secondary ingredient; Pappy – Julian’s grandfather – stayed local to Kentucky and used local wheat instead. If you can’t figure out from the label whether the bourbon’s secondary ingredient is wheat or rye, look at the top: red top means wheat (Makers, Van Winkle), and green denotes rye (Woodford, 1792, Buffalo Trace) as the second defining ingredient.

Cask storage affects quality. Bourbon is aged in charred white oak barrels. The daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations in Kentucky (and Scotland, by the way) push the “angels’ share” out, and draw oak flavors in, for six, ten, or fifteen years. The longer the storage, the less left in the cask… and the smoother the taste. The wood does that. The higher the storage in the storage building, the higher the temperature, and the faster the evaporation. Moving casks is more art than science, but the science says move it around to even out the evaporation rate, which averages around 2% per year. Buffalo Trace – where Van Winkle is distilled – estimates that 30% is gone after 6 years, 84% gone after 15. What’s left is outstanding, but the supply limited.

Bourbon is a long game, and this is central to the story of Julian’s intersection of hard work and luck. Imagine a business where most of your costs are sunken early in the manufacturing process, then wait those six to twenty plus years before you begin to make any money. Julian’s stroke of luck was hearing from Daigeo that they had barrels of old Stitzl-Weller (Pappy’s brand) that they didn’t think they could monetize (because they are finance people, not bourbon aficionados) and were offering for a low price. Those barrels gave Julian breathing room to re-start his family legacy. The scene in the tasting room, after ten years of hoping and praying, was beautiful: “It’s good.”

After sipping Makers, Bulleit, 1796, Bookers, Buffalo Trace, Woodford’s and other Kentucky delights, we drifted off into other topics abour ouy perdonel excerinses wit tha spriririt end torhere loun aoihaceag agerae af eoi r dru jr tp’bp. Ghoo she;p aso hf;eioo hr seh afhae…