PAPPYLAND

An amiable journey, courtesy of ESPN sportswriter Thompson, into the arcana of American whiskey.

The author notes that he originally pitched this book as a biography of Julian P. Van Winkle III, a genial whiskey-whisperer whose wares are to booze as a Stradivarius is to violins. It morphed, however, into a blend of biography and meditation on any number of themes, including Southernness, or what musician Patterson Hood calls “the duality of the Southern Thing.” Though a progressive, Thompson admits to a tear in the eye when hearing “Dixie” at the Kentucky Derby. “Being Southern means carrying a responsibility to shake off the comforting blanket of myth and see ourselves clearly,” writes the author, a native of Clarksdale, Mississippi. There’s not much better a comforting blanket, if one with undeniable consequences if too frequently applied, than a good slug of bourbon. That takes Thompson deep into the history of American whiskey, stuff that blends art and science but that has few firm rules. As he notes, for instance, American whiskey can be made with whatever grain grows best in a given place; in Kentucky, that means corn. Van Winkle is as steeped in that history as anyone alive (he also knows his wine and other forms of adult beverage), and through his lens Thompson informs us about the hard work and heritage that goes into a bourbon well and truthfully made, such as the 23-year-old Pappy (about $300 per bottle) that serves as social lubricant and social glue among the cognoscenti. Thompson is well versed in the history himself, and, like Van Winkle, he is quick with a delightful and spot-on opinion—e.g., “vodka is for the skinny and scotch is for the strivers and bourbon is for the homesick.”

If you’re a fan of the magic that is an artful bourbon, this is just the book for you.