BOURBON ETIQUETTE

From the R.M. Dolin novel, "What Is to Be Done"
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Chapter 19: Bourbon Etiquette

The malting process has barely begun when Theresa collects Jake for his interviews. Reluctant to leave the sanctuary of work, he grabs his stained coffee cup and heads for the tasting room already looking forward to later adding the special ingredients turning this malt into Mula. As he steps outside and is immediately hit with how much has changed since morning; it was cold then, it’s hot now. He spills across the parking lot on waves of dry wind and high desert heat that loft bourbon aromas from the barrel room the same way French Boulangeries tease patrons with the allure of freshly baked baugettes. In deference to French bakers though, the only olfactory sensation that competes with aging bourbon is the smoke from a piñon fire.

May is a transitional month, nighttime freezing prevents people from starting up swamp coolers, while daytime heat tempts them to reconsider. The tasting room is particularly impacted by transitional weather because Jake designed the structure to rely on solar heat for warming and solar shade for cooling. In May both simultaneously occur, but usually opposite their intended benefit. Hurriedly stepping inside, he tosses his sweat-stained gloves on the bar without offering any contrition for having kept his interviewee waiting. As is often the case, Jake pauses to appreciate the tasting room’s construction, one emphasizing function over style that only engineers appreciate. The long bar is finished with light oak side panels and a dark blue glass-tile top. The front South facing wall adjoins the courtyard with three massive glass panes running floor to ceiling on both sides of the double French doors. Vigas, varnished to preserve their freshly pealed appearance, support the vaulted ceiling while the floor is laid with Mexican saltillo tile in a rich rose glaze with pearl colored grout. The walls have a traditional light tan diamond plaster finish. When Jake built the tasting room, he toyed with making the floor uneven and the walls out of plumb so he could claim it was, ‘Santa Fe style’ but the engineer in him couldn’t permit bad carpentry for the sake of regional style.

The intensely bright late afternoon sun casts a kind of light into the tasting room that east-coasters constantly praise as spectacular. A slender young man dressed in a greenish pastel shirt, blue slacks with matching belt, and brown leather loafers without socks, leans casually against the customer side of the bar. From his eye-catching tie to carefully styled hair, he’s distractingly overdressed; not only for Jake’s tasting room, but pretty much for all of New Mexico. “You must be Derick,” Jake trumpets as he briskly walks behind the bar wiping his grain-stained hands in his equally stained jeans before eagerly extending his arm. “I’m Jake.”

Derick stares at the grimy hand. “Pleased to meet you.” He gingerly acquiesces to this outdated custom, but to minimize grime transfer, quickly breaks their clasp hoping he’s protected by the five-second rule.
Jake concludes Derick’s as east-coast as they come. He recalls the many times he was summoned to the Laboratory Director’s office to get chewed out about something; those were the only times he ever wore a nice shirt and tie. Jake senses the same obvious arrogance in Derick’s demeanor that most east coasters possess. After thirty years of working with PhDs though, he knows a thing or two about prima donnas so, it’s not a deal breaker. He tolerates arrogance because according to a psychology paper he read, it’s how marginal people compensate; an assertion repeatedly proven by the many less than inspiring PhDs, he’s been compelled to collaborate with. Jake concludes Derick’s probably never worked a hard day in his life, at least not the gritty grimy kind distilling requires. Sure, he’s rugged and handsome in an outdoor catalog kind of way, but not in any manner rugged men measure. His hands are clean, well-manicured, and devoid of scars. Real men proudly carry scars as personal road maps to worthwhile adventures and improbable mistakes in a lifetime of challenging boundaries, no man can be taken seriously without scars.

“Francisco says he met you in Kentucky.”

“Yes,” Derick answers, his voice dripping with pretense. “I was giving a talk on the three types of American oak barrels and why west coast oak is superior.”

“Do tell.”

“Appalachian oak is of course too porous and has less tannins than Minnesota oak. The tightest pours are in west coast oak. Plus, there’s less sugar, more tannins, and a softer, oakyness.”

“Interesting, so, bourbon should be aged in oak that’s not – oaky?”

“Or sugary,” Derick adds.

“But with lots of tannins?”

Confident the interview’s off to a good start, Derick enjoys the opportunity to impart his extra ordinary wisdom. “Tannins provide structure, impart a dry edginess that’s smoothed out when caramelized sugar gets added later.”

“I like oaky bourbon,” Jake says as much to himself as Derick. “Like my sweetness from wood, plus I’d never bastardize bourbon by adding sugar or dye. Tannins though, that’s a twist. I get adding them in wine but can’t imagine how bad they’d screw up bourbon.”

“It works for the big houses.”

Jake leans against the bar-back. “Capone threw dead rats in his liquor, claimed it gave the taste and texture of barrel aged bourbon. If commercial distilleries thought that were cost effective, you’d be picking rat hairs out of their crap. They’re after the same results as Al, more product at a lower cost, only they invent pseudo-science to justify their ‘secret sauce’.”

“You can’t argue with the science.”

“There’s a whole damn town of PhDs up the hill inventing crazy-ass science just to have something to argue about.” He reaches below the bar and pulls out four different shaped wine glasses, arranging them in front of Derick. He pours equal amounts of water in each glass. “Okay, which one tastes better?”

Derick looks at the glasses considering the ridiculousness of the question while wondering why Jake would pose something so stupid. His deliberation though provides Jake his answer, all that’s left now is to have some fun. “If I told you water tastes better in this glass because it’s taller with a larger opening, would you concur? Or perhaps, it’s this one with the short narrow opening?” He looks intensely at his subject, “Whatta ya think?”

“I don’t know.” Derick’s convinced this riddle has an answer but has no idea how to figure it out.

“What’s your gut say?”

Derick decides not to answer because it’s a silly question based on a worthless premise. He’s holding his ground pretty good, until realizing Jake’s stare isn’t going to stop. “This one,” he points to the stemless glass with tall sides and narrow opening.

It’s been a while since Jake’s had a graduate student to screw with, “Why?”

“Because it’s neither of the two you pointed at.”

“So, you’re saying water tastes better depending on the glass?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You chose one.” Jake leans one elbow on the bar like a causal cowboy, pausing to fully soak in the entertainment value. “Suppose I manufacture water glasses and want to increase sales, there’s two options; either I acquire new customers, or sell more to my existing base. Since customer acquisition is costly, I opt to sell more to my current clientèle. The challenge of course is how?” Derick is about to respond when Jake continues. “By convincing them water tastes different in different glasses using whatever crazy-ass pseudo-science I invent.” Jake points at the first glass. “I’d market this one as my breakfast glass; you know, to kick-start the day; the ad campaign practically writes itself. This one is for after sports because of its regenerative power, and this one would be for long hot afternoons when you need that extra bit of refreshment. And of course, no set’s complete without a glass to help you detox after a brutal day of climbing the corporate ladder. In the end it doesn’t really matter how I spin it, as long as I package it up neat and pretty because people are conditioned to believe whatever bullshit I tell them.” Jake picks up a glass and takes a drink, making sure to emphasize how satisfying the experience is

“What’s your point?”

“That your barrel analogy is nothing more than pseudo-science who-ha.” Jake picks up another glass and drinks it down, “Simply astounding,” he says like a television pitchman. “Taste like, I don’t know – water.” He immediately thinks up a new pitch line. “Made by God but bottled in the land of enchantment.”

“No one’s going to buy your glasses.”

“Au contraire, there’s a company selling a hundred and fifty different wine glasses at ten bucks a pop with stupid people lining up.”

“That’s for wine, I mean it’s just processed grape juice, bourbon’s different.”

“So, your assertion continues to be that bourbon tastes different depending on the glass?”

There’s an old adage that says if you find yourself in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging. Unfortunately, Derick is from the double down school of thought. “After years in the industry, I’ve refined my ability to discern subtle distinctions.”

Jake rubs his chin in a thoughtful manner. “Let me see if I get your thesis, bourbon’s quality depends on the type of barrel it’s aged in, the caramel used for coloring, and the sugar it’s sweetened with; oh, and I almost forgot, the glass it’s poured in. What does the bourbon contribute?”

“It’s like hot dogs.” Derick confidently seizes the segue. “While the meat’s essential, by itself it’s not all that interesting. It’s only after you put it in a bun and add condiments that the ensemble of tastes rally together to create something special.”

“My Dad’s from Chicago, his passion for the Cubs is exceeded only by his love of Chicago style dogs. He’d get your logic. I on the other hand have to say I’ve never heard bourbon explained from the context of hot dogs.”

“Not everyone has my level of whiskey appreciation.”

“You’re on a completely different plane; I’ll give you that.” Jake reconfirms east-coasters are all the same, so used to crap being served on a platter of hype and style they can’t know what’s good until someone tells them. He knows he can’t hire Derick, but there’s one aspect still needing clarification. “Why is it you’d work for a small distillery like mine?”

“The big houses make good bourbon, but everything they do, like you mentioned, is based on ROI. Working with a craft distiller gets me closer to the purity of the process.” For the first time since the interview began, Derick says something that causes Jake to reconsider. “What do you have, a three-, four-hundred-gallon fermenting tank?”

“Eight,” Jake boasts.

“Last place I worked used five, fifteen-thousand-gallon tanks. They staggered mashing so every day a tank was ready to distill. Every batch made exactly the same as the last. Same mash bill, same temperatures, same yeast. Every variable controlled.”

“Some things should be controlled,” Jake counters, “like every bottle being filled and packaged exactly the same. Distilling though is art; I don’t constrain temperatures when mashing, and I pitch yeast based on ambient conditions. From malting to distillation, I don’t control variables so much as manage them. When you let a process take you on a journey, wonderfully interesting things happen.”

“That’s what I mean,” Derick excitedly inserts. “I can’t learn the art of distilling at a large house. To become an expert, I have to work at a place like this.”

“Interesting.” As obnoxious and pretentious as Derick is, there’s merits to his assertion.

“My plan is to work at a small distillery then open my own. You combine my refined sense of distinction with mastering small batch distilling, and I’ll produce the best spirits in the world.”

“Let’s have a drink, you know, to see how my bourbon measures up.” Jake grabs a red bottle bourbon from the bar-back along with two whiskey glasses. He reaches into the refrigerator below the bar for a bucket of ice. Plunking two cubes into each glass, he opens the bourbon and allows the aroma of the spirit-stained cork to loft past his nose. The sweet mix of charcoaled oak and blue corn remind him of the day he started this spirit’s journey to the bottle. As the only Distiller in America who naturally malts his grains, this spirit’s journey began by spreading blue corn on the concrete floor of the mash house. Most Distillers cook their grains, then add malted barley as a catalyst to convert starch to sugar. While there’s no arguing against the efficiency, for Jake the resulting mash is bitter, and the barley overpowers the blue corn’s softer nuances; barley’s an abomination making bourbon taste like Scotch. He hands Derick the cork. “Tell me what you smell?”

Derick flamboyantly sashays the cork under his noise. “The floral fragrance of the grains harmoniously accenting the oak’s vanilla tones,” he begins. “There’s a spiciness that’s playfully fresh yet subtly mature; perhaps even pretentious. I’d say from late harvest rye and two row barley aged in west-coast oak.”

Jake stares in disbelief. “What the hell kind of bullshit is that? You sound like some lame-ass sommelier.” Derick’s taken aback by Jake’s abrupt over-reaction. He’s about to respond when Jake overrides. “(a), I don’t pollute my bourbon with barley. (b), what the hell is late harvest rye? I grew up in South Dakota and never heard of anything so ridiculous. Here’s the deal Opie, I mashed this bourbon in August, that’s the first thing the bouquet reveals. It was hot that summer, hot and dry. Everything changes when dry air moves in off the Sea of Cortez like it did that summer. Changes when you sleep, when you work, and most important, how you mash. My blue corn comes from a commune of organic farmers who slow grow with minimal irrigation. Corn gets sweeter when summer’s extra hot. Mashing in August means the fermentation temperature is higher than I’d like; I wasn’t happy about that, but the journey is, what it is.

“I tell you this, so you’ll appreciate the hot dog matters more than condiments. I have chillers to cool the mash, but their power hogs and I like being green. That summer I was testing a heat extraction system I’d just developed; a pretty cool design that doesn’t require energy. It’s based on the same heat pipes used in the space shuttle, but I modified the-” Jake stops realizing Derick’s not interested in way-cool engineering. “Never mind, fermenting hot has advantages and disadvantages, on the plus side, you finish faster, and the yeast multiplies so aggressively it overpowers the grain’s wild strains. On the negative side, the mash develops flavors and volatiles that can range from less than optimal to downright unpleasant. I get most volatiles out during distillation, but trace elements always persist, and you should have noticed that.”

Derick nods in pensive agreement too afraid to argue. This is now the third time Jake’s aggressively lectured him, and he doesn’t need a small time Distiller telling him about bourbon. Jake pours their glasses two-fingers full then raises his glass to check its color. “Five years,” he calmly states as much to himself as Derick. “Where were you then? I remember like yesterday. That’s the burden of being old, long ago grows increasingly immediate as the length of the road ahead shortens.”

Derick’s barely able to hide his impatience, he shifts back and forth shuffling from one arm to the other in an unconscious effort to deal with the awkwardness of not knowing what to expect. Jake noses the bourbon lost to his thoughts. “Hadn’t rained for a month and blue corn’s scarce. I got what I could, some from the Indians, some from the commune; wasn’t as much as I needed but what can you do? At the end of the day, you either bitch about the way things should be, or work with what God gives you.” Jake suddenly realizes he mentioned God. “If you believe in God that is. What the hell though right? You believe or you don’t, I’m just saying it didn’t rain and the corn situation’s pretty bleak, but I made bourbon anyway cause that’s what you do when shit happens, you adjust and plow ahead. And if it’s August, and of course hot, that’s no excuse not to mash.” He gestures for Derick to try the bourbon.

“When you drink bourbon, allow the spirit to take you back to when it all started. Here’s a fun fact, well maybe more of an interesting observation. If you ask someone how things are going, they’ll mostly say okay while really thinking it’s all shit, but five years later when they think back to that same moment, they only remember what was good. It’s an aspect of our DNA bourbon amplifies.”

The more Jake talks, the more agitated Derick gets. It’s not so much Jake’s comments, as offensive as they are, it’s the bizarre nonstandard manner in which he conducts interviews. ‘Ask me a question!’ Derick silently pleads. ‘Any question related to this job; I’m begging you!’

“You’re too young to look back at anything with a mellowed perspective, but someday you’ll understand the best part of enjoying bourbon is appreciating the character of the spirit and how a well-made bourbon lofts you over memories.” Jake raises his glass. “Here’s to hoping the happy brain cells die last.” He’s about to drink when Derick interrupts.

“Could I maybe get some Coke?”

Jake stops just shy of tasting, slowly setting his glass on the counter glaring at Derick. “Come again?”

Derick immediately recognizes he messed up and the way Jake goes off on small things, he needs to rapidly recover. “It doesn’t have to be Coke; Pepsi will do in a pinch I always say.” He awkwardly laughs hoping this crazy old man’s issue is being anti-coke.

Jake’s prolonged silence, coupled with keeping his head down, fuels Derick’s uneasiness. Given his volatility, Derick worries about personal safety as he anxiously looks for that nice woman who was here when he arrived. When it seems as if the tension cannot achieve a higher crescendo, the buzzer on the bar suddenly shatters their awkward silence announcing someone’s arrival at the entrance to the driveway. In Derick’s agitated state, the buzzer might just as well have been a gunshot and even though the driveway entrance is far away, the distinctive reverberation of a Harley’s off-balance engine rattles into the tasting room’s open door bouncing off the diamond plaster. Slowly, Jake raises his head glaring at his pretentious interviewee. Derick looks back careful to avoid eye contact, fearful this volcano is about to erupt. “Get out!”

“Excuse me?” Derick responds before realizing he may have just poked the bear.

“You come in my Distillery acting like some hotshot expert, yet you can’t tell anything about a bourbon from its bouquet. You have absolutely no appreciation for what it means to drink a fine whiskey and then, you insult me by asking for soda! Get the hell out! That’s as definitive as I can be.”

Derick briefly considers saying something smug but quickly recognizes any provocation might cause this crazed distiller to catapult over the bar. Like a hiker backing away from an aggressive mountain lion, Derick slowly picks up his briefcase and deliberately backs to the doorway. Once outside he quickly scurries across the courtyard and just as he racing under the archway into the relative freedom of the parking lot, he collides full force with the Harley rider on his way in. The loosely worn leather backpack casually slung over the Harley rider’s shoulder is knocked off on impact, and as the backpack’s shoulder strap slides past his fingers, the Harley rider effortlessly snatches the strap, stopping the bag’s downward momentum inches from colliding with the flagstone. “Whoa,” he says good-naturedly, “you okay?”

Shaken from the scare Jake put on him and from his unexpected collision, Derick stutters to respond. “Ah yeah.” He attempts to compose himself while nervously shuffling toward his car. “You here for the job?”

“Saw the highway sign, thought a tasting would be good.”

“Turn around now, the old man’s crazy!”

The Harley rider watches Derick manically unlock his car and frantically zip through the parking lot, he briefly considers the warning before shouldering his backpack. “I’m good with crazy.” Idling across the courtyard, he pauses to appreciate the architectural character of how the textured adobe finished walls accented by double French doors leading into the tasting room is inviting. He notices the pinkish flagstone with its array of shades and random shapes contains a simple yet indiscernible pattern. “Howdy,” he announces stepping through the French doors sizing Jake up for signs of insanity.

Jake’s busy dumping water out of wine glasses and doesn’t look up. “Back at ya.” Once the glasses are put away, he surveys his next interviewee with an inquisitor’s eye, noticing straight away how naturally his faded jeans hang on his wire frame and his long sleeve T-shirt hints at taunt muscles; the kind that come from years of hard work. His scuffed-up construction boots are worn as tan as his thick sandy hair, both faded away under a relentless sun. Jake senses a lightness about this would-be distiller, something that says he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

The Harley rider saddles up to the bar seamlessly sliding off his backpack. “Nice place.”

Jake extends his hand. “I’m Jake.”

“They call me, Chance.” He firmly shakes Jake’s hand.

“Chance what?”

“Just Chance.” He spins around leaning his back lazily against the bar.

“Guess then I’ll just be Jake.”

“Couldn’t help but notice the flagstone-”

“Arizona rose.”

“I know,” Chance responds with equal abruptness. “The mosaic though, it’s like, well like there’s a pattern but not obvious.”

“Very good, no one’s ever noticed.”

“Well,” Chance says smoothly, “I do get around.” He walks to the doorway to more closely investigate. “So, what is it?”

“That’s for you to figure out. You from around here?”

Chance is focused on the stonework. “From here, from there, pretty much from everywhere.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“An honest one. I’m on a quest to prove the world’s round.”

Jake bewildered; the last interview was weird enough and this one’s not off to any better start. “Pretty much settled science don’t ya think?”

“Then you subscribe to the philosophy that what goes around comes around?”

“Huh?”

“If the world’s round, what goes around, comes around right?” Chance turns back to the bar and leans over lowering his voice. “It’s what gives the world consequence.” He pushes back and walks down the bar examining Jake’s many products. “If I stop moving,” he whimsically adds, “the ‘coming around’ stuff catches up with what’s no longer going around.”

“Huh, gives me something to think about on tomorrow’s ride.”

“You ride?”

“Bicycles.”

“Never got the point of meaningless work.”

“Wait till you’re my age, it’ll makes sense.”

“They’ll catch me way before then.” The easiness Chance arrived with suddenly evaporates as he stumbles to come up with something cute. “Whoever comes around after my going around, that is.”

Jake senses something’s not wholly copacetic. “I read about what your Harley friends did to that punk in Albuquerque who burned the flag.”

“I’m not from Albuquerque.”

“You tell them they drink for free in my showroom.”

Chance looks Crazy-Jake over starting to get what the other guy was talking about. “Ah, sure.”

“So, what do you know about distilling?”

Chance decides there’s no downside to answering. “Never actually distilled, I mean I know the process cause my dad used to drag me around on distillery tours.”

“That qualifies you as a Distiller?”

“Never said it did.” Chance decides if this is what one has to go through to get a taste, so be it.

Jake opens the red bottle bourbon jumping straight to the final exam question. “What’s your position on bourbon?”

“My dad’s nuts about it, always trying to teach me what differentiates different bourbon’s.”

“Was Jack his favorite?”

“He never touches commercial stuff.” Jake’s about to end the interview when Chance continues. “Besides, Jack’s not bourbon.”

Jake didn’t expect someone who’s never distilled to know that. “Very good.” He hands Chance the cork.

“Natural cork,” Chance nods approvingly, “screw-ons remind me of cough syrup.” He smells the cork. “I’m not familiar with blue corn, and pardon the obvious pun, but it seems not as corny as most bourbons. I don’t know, more delicate.”

“Delicate,” Jake snarls.

“Different then,” Chance responds unaffected by Jake’s hostility. “But in a good way.” Jake snatches back the cork convinced the interview’s over. “Which is surprising, given you fermented hot.”

“Say what?” Jake stutters.

“Don’t pretend, you know I’m right.”

Slowly Jake nods, relieved the interview’s back on track. He grabs a fresh glass and loads in ice and bourbon. “You got that one, but we’re not done.” He hands Chance the glass eager to see what he’ll do.

Chance closes his eyes and noses the bourbon before gently setting the glass on the bar. “Sandy,” he says with a sly smile. “Just finished restoring my shovel-head back in Wisconsin and we rode to the lake for a shake-down ride. The Harley’s magnificent, and Sandy,” he pauses to smile, “let’s just say she was fantastic. Hard to believe it’s been seven surreal years.”

“Ah ha!” Jake shouts. “The bourbon’s only five years old.” Even though Jake ridicules, he’s impressed his new apprentice let the bourbon take him back in time. Besides, he always lectures people five-year-old desert aged bourbon is the same as seven-year-old east coast stuff.

“Then it’s Rita at a cowboy dance in Dallas.” Chance slides seamlessly into even happier memories. “Picnics are one thing, Amigo, but cowgirls in Dallas, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah,” Jake says with an unintended smile. “Been to Dallas a time or two myself back in the day.” He reaches under the counter and opens the refrigerator. “A little Coke on that?”

“No!” Chance stares down Jake’s insult.

Jake rummages around, “how about Pepsi?”

“I’m good.”

“I got 7up and Mountain Dew?” Jake enjoys his inside joke even though it is ‘the’ pivotal moment of their interview.

“Dad taught me there’s an etiquette to bourbon, says, ‘bourbon’s like life; meant to be experienced straight up and unfiltered.’ Now if this were Scotch, I’d have a Pepsi just to help muscle past the gag reflect.”

Jake pops up staring wildly at Chance with what could easily be construed as crazed intensity. “You’re hired!”

“Whoa, I just came for a tasting.”

If it were possible for Jake’s stare to intensify, it does; to the point of even being desperate. “But you passed the interview.”

“I’m not looking for a job, remember, I have this whole goes around comes around thing, and-”

Just then, as if fueled by fate, a crash of tumbling pots reverberates through the tasting room and both men turn prepared to respond to whatever calamity’s coming toward them. What they discover though, is Theresa busy at the stove and Sympatico holding a pot she’s dug out of the lower kitchen cabinet. Apparently, when she pulled the pot from a precariously balanced perch, the cabinet’s contents tumbled onto the tile floor in a startled roar. Sympatico glances toward the tasting room, but has gotten so good at camouflage, Chance doesn’t notice the careful way she conceals herself from evaluation. Theresa disappears behind the tasting room wall before Chance can discern beyond her obvious beauty.

“That’s Sympatico,” Jake inserts not thinking much about it. He’s unable to see Theresa from his vantage point but assumes she there. Recognizing Chance’s reaction, he casually adds. “She just started, Theresa’s been with me awhile.”

Chance only catches innuendo-laced glimpses of Sympatico as she methodically re-stacks the pots. All thoughts of leaving suddenly evaporate, as does his primal need to keep moving. “Does the job come with room and board?” he asks not diverting his eyes from the kitchen.

Jake’s not above exploiting opportunity. “Indeed, it does, but you have to stay through Crush.”

“Okay,” Chance immediately answers.

It’s not obvious what Sympatico wants with the pot, but after filling it with water she returns to her bedroom. Once out of sight Chance shifts his attention back to the bar. “Here’s the deal,” Jake flatly states extending his hand, “I provide room and board along with a fair wage. You commit to stay through Crush.”

“Agreed.” Chance vigorously shakes.

“That’s Thanksgiving, just so we’re clear.”

“I doubt the world’s gonna catch up with me before then.”

Jake looks oddly at Chance, there’s definitely something not quite right about this rugged Harley rider, but also, something says whatever it is can be overlooked. “Alrighty then, now that your part of the team, pull around back to the casita and Theresa will you settle you in.”

Chance tosses back his drink. “Can’t let good bourbon go to waste.” He grabs his leather backpack and heads outside.

Satisfied he found the right person for the job; Jake nonetheless can’t shake the feeling something’s off but even after replaying the interview he can’t pinpoint the genesis of his concern. The strong vibration of the Harley’s off-balance engine shatters the still quiet of the tasting room with an intense sense of mystery spiced peril. As would any reasonably cautious man, Jake reaches below the bar for a plastic storage bag and with deliberate formality, turns the bag inside out, then using it as a glove, empties Chance’s glass careful not to smudge the sides. He delicately dries the inside, then turns the storage bag to its correct state with the glass inside. He seals the bag and carefully places it below the bar beside his box of bullets.