Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)

by Bramseth, Jennifer

  “CiCi told you that?”

  Jana nodded. “We had lunch together after the meeting. You seem surprised.”

  “I guess I am, but also pleased,” Hannah said. “I’ve known CiCi since we were kids. She’s a good person as well as a good person to know in this town.”

  “I figured out both of those things pretty fast,” Jana admitted. “She was very gracious to me. Anyway, I had some other ideas as well.”

  “Let’s walk and talk,” suggested Hannah. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today—and I mean that quite literally.”

  The first stop was the Old House, where Jana started asking Hannah questions about the springs.

  “My thought was that if Lila would allow it we could have a special tour there.”

  “I don’t know if she’d go for that,” Hannah said warningly as they considered a group of framed items that had been put into a storage closet at the back of the museum. “She’s extremely protective of the springs. Bo didn’t get to see the springs until he got a court order to do so.”

  “Oh,” Jana said dejectedly as Hannah handed her a rubber band. They’d been looking for one for a few minutes so Jana could put her hair up in a ponytail like Hannah.

  “But go ahead and tell me what you’re thinking,” Hannah encouraged her.

  “Well, it would go along with the extra history tour,” explained Jana. “It would complement it, and expand the story of the distillery beyond the traditional grounds. It’s my understanding that there’s been distilling activity along this section of Old Crow Creek for around two hundred years. Is that right?”

  “Absolutely. This area is historic. My family, along with other pioneers with land grants, came from Virginia shortly after the Revolutionary War and settled this area. Old Crow Creek and the springs must have been attractive spots since they were reliable sources of water and the land around here was fertile. Back then, almost everyone made whiskey. It was part of farm life, like raising crops or keeping animals. People used it to barter. But I guess making whiskey was in my family’s blood, and we started commercially distilling on this site in the 1840s. We’ve been turning corn into comfort for the better part of two centuries.”

  “You certainly know a lot about the history of this area,” Jana said admiringly.

  “I know more than some people give me credit for. My mother worried that I didn’t take the history side of our business seriously enough, but I do. And I can see how highlighting the springs would be attractive as part of the campaign to boost our shot at historic status. It expands the history of distilling, helps explain it.”

  Jana nodded and pressed her lips tightly together, apparently thinking hard. “Maybe we could make it a very exclusive tour. Expensive, not offer it very often. Would Lila bite at that?”

  “Not sure. Especially the expensive part you propose.”

  “What if after any expenses of the tour—which would likely be minor—all proceeds were donated to a charitable cause? Lila’s choice.”

  “Oh, now you’re talking her language,” Hannah said, closing the closet door. They’d pulled out several antique framed advertisements for Old Garnet dating after the Prohibition Era. Jana had suggested they put them up to augment the distillery timeline on the museum wall, which was a little lacking during the pre–World War II era.

  “Does she have a favorite charity?”

  “Several, so you might’ve hit upon how to get her to agree. I could see how she could go for the money being designated for a scholarship for the kids at her school, the local animal rescue, or perhaps battlefield maintenance at Perryville—she loves it down there. But again, you’ll have to talk to her about your ideas.”

  After leaving the Old House, Hannah took Jana to the old rickhouse, the oldest rickhouse on the grounds and made of Kentucky limestone. The old wooden shingles, painted a dull blue, were weathered and peeling, their deliberate shabbiness enhancing the ancient aura they projected along with the stone façade and wrought iron bars over the old windows.

  “Be warned,” Hannah said as they walked through the tall columns and racks of aging barrels of bourbon which stretched stories above their heads to the ceiling, “Bo loves to come out here and sit and think from time to time.” Hannah walked Jana to a far corner and pointed to a stool fashioned from used barrel staves. “He won’t be out here when he knows the tours are going on, but you could come across him another time. And he doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  “His thinking spot?” Jana asked as they crossed back through the rickhouse and headed toward the bottling facility in a building on the other side.

  “Something like that,” Hannah said, smiling and looking up toward the rafters.

  After a brief visit to watch bottles of Old Garnet get filled, labeled, and boxed, Hannah took a now profusely sweating Jana to the back of the building where they found a four-wheeler.

  “Get in,” Hannah instructed a rather wilted-looking Jana. Hannah, who had dressed appropriately for the day by wearing light twill capri pants and a sleeveless pink polo, wondered whether she’d forgotten to tell Jana to dress casually or whether Jana had done it anyway. Perhaps to impress Walker?

  If so, that plan had failed miserably, Hannah thought as she started the ignition on the vehicle. Hannah had noticed Walker had barely batted an eye when he’d spotted his ex-wife, but he’d beamed at the mere mention of CiCi.

  CiCi and Walker. What a nice little love story that was turning out to be.

  What was it lately with people she knew getting together?

  First it was Rachel and Brady. She should’ve seen that coming from a mile away. Then she was blessed beyond measure to get rid of her cheating husband and find Kyle again. And then—of all people—her brother falls in love! Bo Davenport, engaged to someone as sweet and smart as Lila McNee! Now the lucky winner was CiCi, who certainly deserved her chance at happiness just like anyone else.

  Hannah cast a glance westward at Old Crow Creek. Obviously, there was some kind of love potion floating around in the waters of Craig County, Kentucky.

  Hannah sped around the property and drove Jana past every rickhouse, including the site where they were building a new rickhouse to replace the one that had burned and exploded the previous winter. Hannah couldn’t tell whether Jana was unaccustomed to being in a four-wheeler or whether she was a bad driver (probably both, she thought), because her passenger was gripping the side of the vehicle with one hand and clenching her jaw as Hannah directed the thing around curves and hills on the distillery property.

  By the time they returned to the distillery building, Jana looked windswept and rattled, like a shipwreck survivor, soaking wet not from the sea but perspiration.

  “Should’ve warned you about the four-wheeler tour,” Hannah apologized as she parked and they entered the building. “You’ll need to learn how to drive it since you might need to be out on the grounds sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” Jana said weakly and patted at her head to tamp down unruly strands of hair.

  “But Lila hates it. Won’t allow it on her land.”

  “Thank goodness,” Jana muttered.

  Jana followed Hannah up the large, broad stairs that led to the second floor of the distillery. The building was steamy, as usual, and the yeasty, sweet smell of the cooking mash was pervasive.

  Hannah chatted over her shoulder about the BourbonDaze festival, which started the next week, as Jana trailed behind on the stairs. Jana confirmed that she’d be in attendance that Saturday, which was the celebration’s big day with the most events. A few thousand people were expected to be in town for the festivities.

  “I’ll be at the history booth as much as possible,” Jana promised.

  “Good,” Hannah said. “Bo, Lila, CiCi, and Walker will be around as well. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Hannah made a point to turn around and catch the look on Jana’s face when she mentioned CiCi and Walker being at the booth together. Although Jana exhibited no dismay at the ref
erence to the new couple, her next question revealed her frame of mind.

  “So this is where Walker works?” Jana asked when they reached the top of the stairs and came out upon the wooden floor around the mash tubs.

  “This is it,” Hannah confirmed. “His office, should you need him, is down that narrow hall in front of us between the two tubs,” she said, pointing at the opposite wall.

  Hannah gave Jana a lecture on the mash tubs, how old they were, and how Bo had had a new one installed recently. “His pride and joy,” Hannah commented as she headed left into the high-ceilinged portion of the building where the teardrop-shaped, massive copper stills were located.

  And there was Walker, yards away with a few glasses of white dog. The clear liquid rested in three small glasses on a raised wooden table, ready for his consumption and testing. Behind him was a two-story-high exposed-limestone wall upon which hung a massive antique sign proudly advertising Old Garnet. Walker was locking the spirit safe—the small glass case through which the clear liquor poured, ready to be pumped into a barrel and aged into Old Garnet bourbon—when he turned and noticed Hannah and Jana heading toward him.

  Walker picked up two of the glasses and readied to hand them to his guests.

  “Care to taste with me today?” he asked, but both women declined. “Suit yourselves,” he said and sampled his own wares.

  “Well?” Hannah asked after he’d sipped from each glass.

  “Perfect.” He bent to write a few notes in a dog-eared spiral notebook which rested on the table next to the three glasses.

  Walker stepped away from the table and joined his boss and new coworker at the top of a short flight of stairs which led to the barrel-filling area below. As the group headed down the stairs, Hannah asked Walker his plans for Saturday. He confirmed he’d be at the Old Garnet booth for several tastings and later appear at the history booth. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Hannah’s cell phone rang.

  “What’s wrong, Goose?” she asked upon answering, then paused to listen. “Be there soon.” She sighed and ended the call. “Problem with the furniture for your new office, Jana. Looks like they delivered the wrong stuff. Gotta go deal with it. Walker, tell her about the barrels and the barrel run. Jana, come back and meet me in the visitors’ center in ten or fifteen minutes. Sorry.”

  And she was gone, leaving her companions alone except for a worker at the barrel-filling area who was opening a box of bungs.

  “Busy woman,” Jana said as she watched Hannah disappear through a door next to a large collection of new barrels.

  “That’s Hannah,” Walker agreed.

  He did as Hannah had instructed and explained to Jana about filling the barrels and the use of a barrel run, the small gauge track used to roll the barrels from the point at which they were filled in the distillery to a loading area behind the old rickhouse from which they were they distributed to the various rickhouses on the distillery grounds.

  “We’re only one of two distilleries in the state that still has a barrel run. Don’t know why more don’t use it. It works well,” he observed as they stepped outside and saw two workers moving barrels along the run and away from the distillery building.

  Jana smiled as she watched the barrels roll by. “Very quaint. I bet the tourists love it.”

  Walker nodded. “They take lots of pictures. It’s a favorite stop on the tour.”

  “Have you ever considered having special master distiller tours?” Jana asked.

  “Well, no, I guess not,” Walker answered.

  “You could do it with a tour guide, of course. Maybe have a special tasting at the end,” she suggested, thinking out loud as they walked.

  Walker stopped as they came close to the barrel run, and Jana did as well. He didn’t like the idea but didn’t want to tell Jana to her face. Frankly, he suspected that Jana would want to do the tour with him, considering the way she’d suggested it. And that would get her closer to him. He kept his thoughts to himself, thinking if he voiced any level of concern about the idea, that might make her all the more likely to press the idea with Hannah.

  “I hope I’ll see you around the grounds before the festival next week,” said Jana. “I’m glad to be here.”

  “Well, there’s one place I hope I don’t see you,” Walker said, causing Jana’s face to fall. “Jury duty.”

  “Oh, yeah, that,” Jana said dismissively. She turned the conversation to BourbonDaze, asking a few questions about the event as well as his schedule during the festival. During a pause which Walker thought signaled the end of their exchange, Jana’s mood turned strangely somber. “I’m sorry about the other day at the courthouse during orientation. I was out of line and shouldn’t have—”

  “Let’s forget it, shall we?” He wanted to put the incident behind them, especially since all was well with CiCi and Jana was now officially his coworker. “A new job, new start, right?”

  Jana nodded, and gave a weak smile as she looked at the ground. “CiCi is really nice, Walker. And damned lucky.”

  “Thanks. But I’m the lucky one.”

  “I’d better find Hannah,” Jana said, pointing over her shoulder toward the visitors’ center.

  As she left, Walker was sure he saw unshed tears filling his ex-wife’s eyes.

  Chapter 18

  “You really want to go back to The Windmill?”

  It was Friday night and CiCi hadn’t seen Walker all week except for a brief hello in the courthouse on Friday morning when he’d reported for jury duty. He hadn’t gotten seated and had left for work after being excused, and the extent of their communication had been to wave to each other in the courtroom. Knowing he would be there that morning, CiCi had volunteered to be the bench clerk that day for Rachel, and the good Judge Richards had seemed a little perplexed as to why the elected clerk herself was bothering to act as the bench clerk since CiCi could’ve saddled any of her staff with the tiresome job.

  “Yes,” CiCi confirmed.

  “I thought I might take you to The Rickhouse.”

  “That’s sweet,” CiCi said. She was curled up on her bed at home, having just ditched her work clothes after getting home from work. “But I’ve already changed, and I would like to see what kind of pie they have tonight at the diner. Besides, it would be quick.”

  “Quick? Want to get rid of me that fast tonight?”

  “No, silly,” she chided him. “I meant it would be quick so we could get back to my place sooner.”

  He laughed. “I see.”

  “Unless you planned on just dropping me off on my front porch and we say a chaste good-night.”

  “That doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time. And I don’t think that after last weekend anything we do will be chaste, Catherine.”

  She sighed, thinking about the times he had used that name during the night they had spent together. There was something about the way he called her by that name that was a promise and a threat at the same time. It set all her senses on high alert, and CiCi instantaneously felt a little tenseness between her legs

  “Let’s do something a little different,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “What if we went to The Windmill and got takeout? We could go on a picnic. You’d get your Windmill fix, but I’d get you alone somewhere.”

  “Best of both worlds. I like it.”

  “I’ll go get the food and pick you up.”

  “But where are we going to picnic?”

  “The distillery, of course.”

  “Ah, your happy place?” she teased.

  “Not the spot I have in mind,” he told her. “But I think you’ll like it.”

  Walker left work and went straight to The Windmill. The journey took him all of five minutes, and he spent only ten minutes getting his order together. He left with three large white paper bags full of turkey and cheese sandwiches on large homemade sesame seed roll buns, chips, and four slices of pie, all different flavors: bourbon pecan, cherry, peach, and chocolat
e. CiCi loved every one of those flavors—and he’d love watching her eat them as well as getting tastes from her lips later that evening.

  As he drove to her house, he kept thinking about those pie flavors. He was able to recognize every one of them in good bourbon, and in his mind’s eye could see them in their respective locations on the bourbon flavor wheel.

  Maybe that had been what had been so damned hot all the times he’d sat in The Windmill, unable to hide his growing attraction to CiCi, watching her eat a myriad of pie flavors. He had instinctively entwined his two passions: CiCi and bourbon. It had certainly been enjoyable watching her lips, mouth, and tongue as she devoured the treats, but he’d also sat there with his knowledge of bourbon, hoping he’d someday have the chance to teach her to detect those very flavors in the bourbon he crafted.

  After arriving at CiCi’s house and being greeted with the kind of kisses that promised so much more that evening, they were soon in his car and back at the distillery.

  “You’re sure everyone’s gone for the day?” she asked as they pulled into the nearly deserted visitors’ center parking lot.

  “Nobody’s here except the skeleton crew in the distillery and the night watchman.”

  Walker popped the trunk and helped CiCi out of the car. After extracting the recognizable white paper bags from The Windmill along with some blankets and a cooler, they headed into the visitors’ center. When CiCi asked why they were going indoors, Walker said he needed to get the key to the four-wheeler from Goose’s office.

  “Didn’t want to ask him for it lest I invited questions.”

  “So I guess it’s fair to say where we’re going is off the beaten path?”

  “Yes,” Walker said. “Bo showed me the spot where we’re going when I first started working at the distillery. Told me that it’s part of the Old Garnet legend.”