Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)
Page 34
On the tours, Four Roses gives generous samples of their three expressions, and you get to keep the glass—with four embossed roses in the bottom of the glass.
My favorite expression of Four Roses is the Single Barrel. High rye, but extremely smooth. The tour guide called Single Barrel “your all-day Sunday sippin’ whiskey.”
One interesting fact about Four Roses is that its facilities are split. The distillery is in Lawrenceburg, but bottling is done at Cox’s Creek, in Nelson County—and very near one of the real “Bourbon Springs” sites I’ve found on a Kentucky map. Tanker trucks take bourbon from the distillery to Cox’s Creek. If you take the tour at one location, your ticket is good for another sixty days to take the tour at the other location.
Also, Four Roses’ rickhouses are unique in that they are all single story. Thus, no center cut; all barrels tend to age at the same rate with some variation between barrels at the edges of the rickhouse to those in the interior. But that variation is not nearly as marked as the multistoried rickhouses of almost all other major distilleries.
EASTER EGGS
“Booker’s Babies”
Booker Davenport, Bo and Hannah’s grandfather and creator of the “Booker’s Babies” or wedding bourbon, is named in honor of the late, legendary Booker Noe.
Booker Noe was a direct descendant of Jacob Beam and Jim Beam (Booker’s grandfather), and a sixth-generation Beam family member to head the Beam bourbon dynasty. Many credit Booker for creating the market for small batch bourbon.
Lucy Dant
The bride of the founder of Old Garnet, her last name honors an old bourbon-making Kentucky family, the Dants. Here are a few pictures of antique Dant bottles at the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown, Kentucky.
Old Garnet/Woodford Reserve
In this book, we learn a little more about bourbon history and the history of Old Garnet. In the scene with Hannah and Jana, Hannah recounts her family’s history in the whiskey business and mentions that the Davenports began commercial distilling in the 1840s. Some of the oldest distillery buildings at Woodford Reserve date to this time, so I used the same time frame to create a little more of the Old Garnet backstory.
Jana Pogue
Jana’s last name is a shout-out to Old Pogue Distillery in Maysville, Kentucky. Old Pogue is on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour.
Maysville, formerly known as Limestone, sits on the Ohio River in northeast Kentucky. Limestone was a port through which many a barrel of whiskey passed as it was shipped out of the Commonwealth and down to New Orleans. Many of those barrels were stamped “Old Bourbon County Whiskey,” thus leading to one theory about how bourbon whiskey got its name.
My Old Kentucky Home State Park
This place is not a myth—it really does exist, and you can visit it. During the summer months, it is difficult to see from the road due to the trees, and it actually does sit on a hill. As mentioned in the back matter of ANGELS’ SHARE, Heaven Hill (the Bourbon Heritage Center), is located a few miles south of My Old Kentucky Home.
The Old Talbott Tavern
The Tavern dates to the late eighteenth century; it is so old that Lincoln supposedly stayed there as a child when his parents came to town because of a land-dispute lawsuit. Yes, I’ve had the pot roast and the bourbon bread pudding—and they are wonderful (the hot brown is good as well). On the website for the Tavern, you can read about ghostly encounters. There have been sightings of the ghost of Jesse James.
Four Times Up the Stairs
Yes, I know that this book contains four instances where someone runs up the stairs in CiCi’s house to the bedroom (CiCi does this three times, Walker once). It was deliberate.
Why four times? Because this is the fourth book in the series.
The Spring at the Waterfall
The spring at the waterfall—the proposal site in the book—was inspired by the real spring which feeds into Glenn’s Creek behind Woodford Reserve. It was this spring which lured Elijah Pepper to the property in 1812, and you can see the rippling of the spring as it flows into the creek. There is a waterfall along this part of the creek but farther downstream.
BourbonDaze/the Kentucky Bourbon Festival™
BourbonDaze is but a pale imitation of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival™, held every September in Bardstown, the Bourbon Capital of the World™. As I write this, I am making plans to attend the 2015 KBF. The five-day event features bourbon tastings, luncheons, dinners, lectures, museum and distillery tours, and a pancake breakfast that is not to be missed.
Why is KBF in September? Because that’s Bourbon Heritage Month in Kentucky!
KEEP CALM
The KEEP CALM AND DRINK BOURBON glasses are not a figment of my imagination. You can get them at the gift shops on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and you can see one on the Pinterest board for this book. The servers at the Old Talbott Tavern also wear T-shirts bearing this saying.
PLAYLIST
These songs were on my mind when writing this book; playlist on my website and Pinterest board
Miss Chatelaine and The Mind of Love by k.d. lang (from the album Ingénue, 1992)
Moonlight Swim by Elvis Presley (from the album Blue Hawaii, 1950)
Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House (from the album Crowded House, 1986)
The Look of Love by Chris Botti and Chantal Kraviazuk (from the album A Thousand Kisses Deep, 2003)
Take Me Home by Phil Collins (from the album No Jacket Required, 1985)
Thank you for visiting the Land of Bourbon and Bluegrass!
Come back soon!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Chapters 1 and 2: CEDAR AND CINNAMON
BITS ABOUT BOURBON!
EASTER EGGS
PLAYLIST
TABLE OF CONTENTS