Pappyland by Wright Thompson is a book about wistfulness and wishfulness.
Kentucky Derby visitors are wistful.
“The day-trippers wear gangster suits and outlandish patterns and hats inappropriate to the latitude, temperature, or setting. It’s amateur hour. They hold liquor like ninth graders. The homogenization of America has left people wandering the land in search of a place to belong. We are a tribeless nation hungry for tribes. That longing and loneliness are especially on display in early May in Kentucky.”
That feeling is in late-night bourbon too. We feel nostalgic, “which I only recently learned comes from the Greek words for home and pain.” Bourbon, Wright writes, “It’s a drink made for contemplating, and what is usually being contemplated is the easy and often false memory of better days.”
It’s Springsteen’s Glory Days. Youth is wasted on the young. It’s melancholy.
There’s also wishfulness.
The book is centered around Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the bourbon brand Pappy Van Winkle. My impression was silver spoons, seersuckers, and bluegrass mansions. My impression was wrong.
David Chang once cautioned an interviewer that just because a restaurant was highly rated and busy did not mean it was also a good business.
Julian grew up well, running around the bourbon-born grounds. But like the Kentucky horses, bourbon’s success was short-lived. The glamorous inheritance from his grandfather couldn’t be salvaged by his father and the family business sold out.
That’s about when Julian wished for it back.
That’s about when Julian worked for it back.
Wright weaves a good story, which I won’t spoil. It’s about Julian’s past and present. Our past and present. Wrights too.
Can we be anything but wistful of the past? Is bourbon a conduit? We marvel at AI’s ability to generate the right information. Physical artifacts do that, bourbon does that.
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“We make fine bourbon at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon.” – Pappy slogan
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