Pappyland Pappyland

Pappyland

A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last

    • 4.3 • 201 Ratings
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

An instant New York Times bestseller

From the bestselling author of The Cost of These Dreams

The story of how Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the most coveted cult Kentucky Bourbon whiskey in the world, fought to protect his family's heritage and preserve the taste of his forebears, in a world where authenticity, like his product, is in very short supply.


As a journalist said of Pappy Van Winkle, "You could call it bourbon, or you could call it a $5,000 bottle of liquified, barrel-aged unobtanium." Julian Van Winkle, the third-generation head of his family's business, is now thought of as something like the Buddha of Bourbon - Booze Yoda, as Wright Thompson calls him. He is swarmed wherever he goes, and people stand in long lines to get him to sign their bottles of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, the whiskey he created to honor his grandfather, the founder of the family concern. A bottle of the 23-year-old Pappy starts at $3000 on the internet. As Julian is the first to say, things have gone completely nuts.

Forty years ago, Julian would have laughed in astonishment if you'd told him what lay ahead. He'd just stepped in to try to save the business after his father had died, partly of heartbreak, having been forced to sell the old distillery in a brutal downturn in the market for whiskey. Julian's grandfather had presided over a magical kingdom of craft and connoisseurship, a genteel outfit whose family ethos generated good will throughout Kentucky and far beyond. There's always a certain amount of romance to the marketing of spirits, but Pappy's mission statement captured something real: "We make fine bourbon - at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon." But now the business had hit the wilderness years, and Julian could only hang on for dear life, stubbornly committed to preserving his namesake's legacy or going down with the ship.

Then something like a miracle happened: it turned out that hundreds of very special barrels of whiskey from the Van Winkle family distillery had been saved by the multinational conglomerate that bought it. With no idea what they had, they offered to sell it to Julian, who scrambled to beg and borrow the funds. Now he could bottle a whiskey whose taste captured his family's legacy. The result would immediately be hailed as the greatest whiskey in the world - and would soon be the hardest to find.

But now, those old barrels were used up, and Julian Van Winkle faced the challenge of his lifetime: how to preserve the taste of Pappy, the taste of his family's heritage, in a new age? The amazing Wright Thompson was invited to be his wingman as he set about to try. The result is an extraordinary testimony to the challenge of living up to your legacy and the rewards that come from knowing and honoring your people and your craft. Wright learned those lessons from Julian as they applied to the honest work of making a great bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn't help applying them to his own craft, writing, and his upbringing in Mississippi, as he and his wife contemplated the birth of their first child. May we all be lucky enough to find some of ourselves, as Wright Thompson did, in Julian Van Winkle, and in Pappyland.

GENRE
Biographies & Memoirs
RELEASED
2020
November 10
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
256
Pages
PUBLISHER
Penguin Publishing Group
SELLER
PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.
SIZE
3.3
MB

Customer Reviews

mcmicha7 ,

Cheers! 🥃

Wright Thompson is an American poet and master storyteller. Thank you for taking us on this journey.

Jadeventure ,

Long winded

Long on words, short on story.
I was especially disappointed in the long tracts of nostalgic pages, that seemed to be a catharsis for the writer, and the cost of the reader.

El Duderino NC ,

Who is this book about?

I was really hoping to like this book when I heard about and started reading it, but the further I got into the book the more I realized it’s half a biography about Julian Van Winkle and half an autobiography about the author and his family which was extremely disappointing. The more I read the more I started reading about the author’s political preferences which like most people I could care less about. Lastly, you write a book about the Van Winkles and their famous distilleries and don’t bother to include one single picture of anything? Pretty disappointing as well to say the least.

Great Australian Stories Great Australian Stories
2011
Ronnie Ronnie
2009
Company of Heroes Company of Heroes
2013
Two and Two Two and Two
2017
Willie Willie
2000
Me and Paul Me and Paul
2022
The Barn The Barn
2024
The Cost of These Dreams The Cost of These Dreams
2019
The Best American Sports Writing 2015 The Best American Sports Writing 2015
2015
El precio de aquellos sueños El precio de aquellos sueños
2021
Cena naszych marzeń. Sportowe biografie bez cenzury Cena naszych marzeń. Sportowe biografie bez cenzury
2022
Bourbon Empire Bourbon Empire
2015
A Course Called America A Course Called America
2021
Phil Phil
2022
The Last Folk Hero The Last Folk Hero
2022
Bourbon Bourbon
2016
The Second Life of Tiger Woods The Second Life of Tiger Woods
2020