American
Bourbon
by
Jennifer Jenkins
Genre:
Fiction, Drama, Suspense
“Jennifer
Jenkins’s AMERICAN BOURBON is a compelling and potent family saga
filled with evocative characters as strong and flinty as the
Appalachia hills from whence they come, set against a smooth plot
that goes down with an easy, supple, clean finish.” –Tony Ray
Morris, author of DEEP RIVER BLUES
“Peopled
with a cast of characters and a setting out of an early Cormac
McCarthy novel, American Bourbon . . . starts out with a burn,
working its way through you, then settling into your bones, where
memories of the journey linger.” – Jeff Talarigo, Author of THE
PEARL DIVER
“A
day of reckoning, as thick as the fog in Virginia’s Blue Ridge
Mountains, looms over the McKinsey clan in this spirited tale of
fury, whiskey and grief. And while Jenkins’ rendering of Caleb, the
abusive and hard-driving patriarch who parlays an illegal moonshining
operation into a multi-million dollar company, is harsh, there is
grace to be found among his three grown children as they find their
way back to one another. Illuminating, nuanced and heartfelt.” –
Laurie Loewenstein, Author of DEATH OF A RAINMAKER
When
an illegal moonshine still explodes deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains,
the McKinsey family’s world-famous (and legal) whiskey, Bourbon
Sweet Tea, is threatened. Government agents swarm the area, eager to
implicate Sweet Tea founder Caleb McKinsey, who was a notorious
bootlegger before going legit. Finding out he is dying, McKinsey’s
ready to hand on his legacy. But none of his children are on speaking
terms. His daughter Brigit is determined to remake the company
against her father’s will, while his sons want nothing to do with
their abusive father. When Caleb dangles a lucrative inheritance if
all his children return, Brigit and her older brother Mack grudgingly
call a truce to find missing brother Kieran. They journey to New York
City, where Kieran fled after his girlfriend disappeared. As crimes
from Caleb’s past promise to destroy Bourbon Sweet Tea, the only
way to save their company is for Brigit to convince her brothers to
embrace the family legends, and live as outlaws once again.
Excerpts from AMERICAN BOURBON by Jennifer Jenkins
Caleb McKinsey
Caleb McKinsey smelled the smoke before he saw it. He jerked his head up, shading his eyes and scanning the cloudless summer sky over the imperial range of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. There it was, a black cloud shooting up, curling in on itself and thickening. The smoke flew upward, expanding into the sky before bursting forth with an explosion that rocked him from his feet.
“Son of a …” he grunted, catching his balance and unable to look away. Fire on the mountain could only mean one thing. He hoped to hell it wasn’t Seamus O’Hearn’s stills burning, but the flames were roiling forth from that direction.
Caleb high-tailed it toward his truck to help his friend. Another blast shook him, and a third knocked him to his knees. He understood, with those three well-timed detonations, that this was self-sabotage. Seamus had been hinting about it for weeks, swearing to blow up his own outfit before the Feds could have at it.
Caleb rose slowly. O’Hearn was beyond his help now. All he could do was hope Seamus was not near the stills when he’d triggered the charges. The bright green leaves of the sugar maple trees and the lush spear-shaped foliage of the yellow birches shimmered in contrast to the treacherous alcohol fire blasting into the sky. Solid yellow flames shot into the air as the stills blew, one by one, all that white dog blazing into the heavens. Nothing burned like a fire fueled by moonshine.
Bourbon Sweet Tea was the McKinsey claim to moonshine fame. The old family mash bill, going back more than two hundred and fifty years, had started with corn simply because that’s what they had the most of on their land. Adding a small amount of wheat made it smoother, and the juice from Virginia’s native peach trees made it “nectarous,” as one of the first Irish immigrants had christened it. The mash was cooked in spring water filtered by limestone and collected in jars, numbered for the output by purity.
This process had been passed carefully down through generations of McKinseys, from legal to illegal to deadly when the government stuck their hand in. Prohibition revenuers had forced most of the old shiners to close down operations, then the government got ruthless about throwing people in prison for the vicious crime of tax evasion. Old Popcorn Sutton had been well into his sixties when the feds decided to pop him for a two year stint even though he’d just been hit with cancer . Before being fitted for prison issue breeches, Popcorn had locked himself in his garage one day and swallowed a tailpipe. The government always underestimated the bullheaded moonshiners.
Caleb had taken note, though. More than twenty years before, it had taken nearly every cent he had to buy the federal licenses and give in to the Department of Justice. More money to build the warehouse for the stills that were up to code; codes which changed every couple of months, just when Caleb had met them. He made sure the product was at least 51% corn as the government required, though his was 75%, and aged in brand-new charred white oak barrels. This earned the legal name of bourbon. Congress had declared in 1964 that bourbon was purely America’s whiskey, and had to be produced in the United States to bear the name. There was a pride in producing it, as opposed to any other whiskey. These government sacrifices had turned a backwoods moonshine business into a successful empire. Of course, every year the tax man took more than he let Caleb keep. That’s what it was really all about, from the beginning–chasing the almighty dollar.
Now there were rumors his daughter, Brigit, had talked to his board of directors about ideas for expanding Bourbon Sweet Tea. She wanted to build a fancy tasting room and a high-class restaurant that featured bourbon recipes. Even a resort hotel, partnering with golf courses and horse farms to create some sort of exclusive destination. There was even a hushed-up notion of adding new flavors to Bourbon Sweet Tea, like ginger and jalapeño, for Christ’s sake. She had a bit of stock, not enough to swing anything, but she was coming into her voting rights on her next birthday, in a few days. Course, she didn’t tell him any of these hare-brained ideas, no sir. It was true they hadn’t spoken in three years, but Caleb refused to think about why. He’d be goddamned if anyone was going to take his company away from him, not while he still had fire in his belly.
Brigit McKinsey
Brigit McKinsey charged into her last illegal hangover with eyes wide open. She burst out from under a mess of tangled blankets, dirty clothes, an empty cellophane sleeve of cracker crumbs, and a scrawny gray cat that did not belong to her. At a little after noon, she banged at the insistent alarm clock that had been ringing and knocked it off the stand, when it finally shut up. She glanced at an indecipherable phone number scribbled on her left hand. Swinging her legs slowly to the floor, she sat up to assess the condition of her head. Not clear, but not terrible either. Time to shake off the cocktail cobwebs of the night before.
Stumbling to the kitchen, she twisted up long, wavy masses of wild auburn hair and fastened them in a potato chip clip. A half-filled bottle of her family’s famous product, Bourbon Sweet Tea, perched precariously near the sink before she tucked it safely back into the cabinet. She searched the refrigerator for a Coke and grabbed two lonely Saltines off the counter. She prided herself on her ability to get up and go, no matter how much she’d drunk. That was why she was a Master of the Party, a title she relished. None of her friends in Touraine had come to the party innocent; drinking was a hazard of small-town living in western Virginia. Either the Baptist God was going to save you, or the Devil had already taken hold of your soul. Brigit didn’t think she needed her soul.
“Happy-almost-birthday!” Annamae Hamilton cried as she flung open her best friend’s front door, bringing in the bright August sunshine. Her cornsilk hair flowed around her tiny shoulders like a waterfall, the coveted treasure of all the Southern belles in her family. With Annamae barely five foot one, Brigit towered six inches over her. They were polar opposites in looks and temperament, with Brigit forgiving Annamae’s addled innocence and Annamae putting up with Brigit’s sharp cynicism.
Brigit, with a mouthful of crackers, raised a hand to wave.
“I think I know where your birthday party’s going to be,” Annamae said.
“Where?” Brigit mumbled.
“You’re not going to believe this, but I saw your brother making plans.”
“Mack?” Brigit said, spraying crumbs down the front of her shirt.
“He was going into the library with a very intense look on his face.”
“Wait, what?”
“Mack, your sexy brother,” Annamae purred.
“Ew, shut up, you pig.”
“So I think the party’s at the library.”
“Maybe he was just getting a book.”
“Brigit …”
“What? He knows how to read.”
Brigit absently placed the crackers on the counter. She snagged a pair of blue jean shorts from a pile of discarded clothing on the floor and pulled them on. She grabbed a wadded-up T-shirt too before Annamae shook her head and snatched it away, handing her a cleaner shirt with fewer wrinkles and no stains.
“No, but seriously. Remember the bluegrass party last fall at the library? Remember how much fun it was, with the bar and band and everything? And they stayed open all night, because it was a private party,” Annamae said.
“But why? Why is Mack doing this?”
“He’s your brother.”
“Look, Annamae, I know it’s supposed to be a surprise and all, but you gotta come clean. Tell me what you know.” Making demands of Annamae wasn’t really fair. She was too honest and too convinced the world was a good place.
“Well, I don’t know anything. Yet. But Mack’s got a lot to make up for, in the party department.”
“Did you talk to him? What did he tell you?” Brigit was now digging through the clothing pile for a pair of shoes that matched.
“No one in your family talks to me until the very last minute.” Annamae said. It was true. Annamae couldn’t keep her mouth shut any better than a big dog at a barbeque.
“Well, it’s insane, even for you.”
“What if he is, though? What if he and your dad are doing it together? Wouldn’t that be a great twenty-first birthday present?”
Brigit watched her friend’s face as she floated into the childhood fairy tale of one big happy McKinsey family.
“No. There’s no way my brother’s throwing me a party. Or my father, either. It’s been three years since the Graduation Disaster, Annamae. Mack and Caleb have learned to leave me alone.”
“Brigit,” Annamae said, “You have to forgive them sometime.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But …”
“I thought you had an interview at Fardowner’s Cafe today,” Brigit said.
“I forgot!” Annamae jumped up. “I gotta go. I’ll figure it all out and call you later.” She sprinted out the door, leaving it open.
“You won’t figure anything out, you never do,” Brigit yelled after her from the doorway. She and Annamae had been friends since they could sit up in a sandbox, but my God, she was blonde.
The acrid scent of smoke assaulted her nose, the slightly sweet warning of alcohol going up in flames. She hurried outside to see two thin plumes of black, dancing and twirling around each other as they rose from Bucks Elbow Mountain. It was not Bourbon Sweet Tea that was burning, she noted with relief. She’d know if that was going up. She was connected to the distillery in her heart. It was where she belonged. On her twenty-first birthday, she’d finally be old enough to vote on her stock. It was the day she’d been waiting for her whole life. She’d have her big twenty-first birthday bash, and then cut back on the drinking and get serious. She was no longer the little girl, the little sister, and they could no longer pretend she didn’t exist.
She was going to take over Bourbon Sweet Tea.
You May Already Know a Moonshiner by Jennifer Jenkins
Not all moonshiners are dangerous. They can be the nicest people you will ever meet. You may already know a moonshiner. If you have a friend who is a little too quietly happy, with a tendency to disappear deep into the woods, and you suspect they may have a hidden still - keep it to yourself. They will share the information, or not. Think of them like a moose. A moose is funny looking, with a dangly beard, gangly legs, and ludicrous antlers. A moose will also charge at lightening speed and stomp you to death.
I met a moonshiner once. I had actually known him for over 10 years and been to some great parties at his house. At one barbecue, he brought me a tiny glass of wine, and I snorted at the miniscule size. “Drink that, you can have another,” was all he said, trying hard not to smile. I drank that tiny glass, and a few more tiny glasses after that, because it was delicious. Then I stood up and then I fell down. To his credit, my friend was sitting right there and caught me just before I faceplanted on his patio. I had completely lost all function of my arms and legs. That is what moonshine will do for you.
He told me all about his process a few days later. It was like was listening to Anthony Bourdain speak about the tartiflette at Les Halles. He started by giving me the recipe for the soil he tended to grow his own elderberries. Make no mistake, this is a man with a gun rack in the cab of his pickup truck guarded by an ever-present suspicious mutt. He described his fermenting process in great detail; however, he declined to show me his still. But his passion was clear and he loved the experimentation process, trying to produce an even better product. There is pride in moonshine. Forget what you think you know; moonshine is an art.
I still have a bottle he gave me. He never sells it, and he calls it wine, both for legal purposes. He does it because it is a challenge, and because it makes people smile. I don’t think you can ask for more than that from moonshine.
Jennifer
Jenkins has written for Hippocampus Magazine, NonBinary
Review, Up North Lit, Canopy Review, Parentheses
Journal, and others. She earned two Glimmer Train Fiction
Award honorable mentions and a nomination for a PEN America Short
Story Award. She has also worked in the theater, with Manhattan
Theatre Club, Sondheim’s Young Playwrights, and the PBS series
Great Performances.
$15
Amazon – 2 winners!
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This book sounds like a really good read.
ReplyDeleteThanks! A lot of people have told me they enjoyed it and named their favorite character, and it is never who I think it is. I love it when people can identify while reading. I hope you like it.
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