THE BEST BOOKS
I wonder what
single barrel Jack
Daniels tastes
like
while the barracudas
fly to Spain
and the activists visit
their accountants
it’s a sunny day
and I sit in the library
reading a book
and it’s like I am in
my twenties again
I spent a lot of time
reading at libraries
and bookstores
back then
I wasn’t working
much
and struggled to
pay rent and eat
so owning books
was out of the
question
especially the ones
I wanted to read
the good books
are always expensive
anyway the hair is
grey now
and stomach bigger
and muscles weaker
and home larger
and I bought a car
last week
though the words
are still the same
screaming volume
they were last time
I read them in the
library
happy with
the knowledge that
not everything
diminishes with age.
single barrel Jack
Daniels tastes
like
while the barracudas
fly to Spain
and the activists visit
their accountants
it’s a sunny day
and I sit in the library
reading a book
and it’s like I am in
my twenties again
I spent a lot of time
reading at libraries
and bookstores
back then
I wasn’t working
much
and struggled to
pay rent and eat
so owning books
was out of the
question
especially the ones
I wanted to read
the good books
are always expensive
anyway the hair is
grey now
and stomach bigger
and muscles weaker
and home larger
and I bought a car
last week
though the words
are still the same
screaming volume
they were last time
I read them in the
library
happy with
the knowledge that
not everything
diminishes with age.
Bible Dam (Jacek Yerka) -- Bruno Bruschi
Jack Daniel's Black Label Tennessee Whiskey is the top-selling American whiskey in the world; the product meets the regulatory criteria for classification as a straight bourbon, but the company disavows this classification: The mash is made from corn, rye, and malted barley, distilled in copper stills, then filtered ("mellowed") through 10-ft (3-m) stacks of ground sugar maple charcoal to remove impurities and the taste of corn, and the company argues this extra step, the Lincoln County Process, makes the product different from bourbon. After the filtering the whiskey is stored in newly handcrafted oak barrels, which give the whiskey its color and most of its flavor. It is a "sour mash" whiskey, meaning that some of the wet solids from a previously used batch are mixed in to help make the fermentation process operate more consistently. Jasper Newton Daniel was one of 13 children fathered by Calaway Daniel and the youngest of his mother's 10 children; when she died, his father remarried and had several more children. Jack despised his step-mother and ran away from home at a young age, but was taken in by Dan Call, a lay preacher and moonshine distiller., and the two formed a legal distilling business in 1875 (tough the brand label on the product says "Est. & Reg. in 1866"). Daniel took over the distillery shortly afterwards, when Call quit for religious reasons, and bought the land in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where the distillery is now located. He began using square bottles in 1897to convey a sense of fairness and integrity. When the government changed his distillery number from No. 7 in District 4 to Number 16 in District 5, he retained the "Old No. 7" brand name. Although his local reputation suffered as the temperance movement gained strength (Tennessee prohibited alcohol in 1910, and Moore County, where his distillery is locted, is still a "dry" county), the whiskey's sales surged it received a gold medal for the finest whiskey at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Jack Daniel never married, but when his health failed he gave the business to Lem Motlow and another nephew in 1907; Motlow, who had been doing the bookkeeping for years, bought the business in 1911 and operated it until 1947. Due to Prohibition, Motlow began distilling operations in St Louis, Missouri, and Birmingham, Alabama, though none of the production there was ever sold due to quality problems; the Alabama distillery closed when that state went dry, and the St. Louis operation ended following passage of the nation's 18th amendment in 1920. The 21st amendment (1933) repealed Prohibition at the federal level, Tennessee's ban remained in effect until 1938, despite stte senator Motlow's efforts. The distillery ceased operation again from 1942 to 1946, when the US banned whiskey manufacture due to World War II. Motlow resumed production in 1947 after good-quality corn was available again, but Motlow died the same year. The company was later incorporated as "Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motlow, Prop., Inc." In 1956 his children sold the company the Brown-Forman Corporation of Louisville, Kentucky, founded in 1870 by George Garvin Brown, a pharmaceuticals salesman who had the then-novel idea of selling top-grade whiskey in sealed glass bottles. Though alcohol may not be consumed in Moore County, state law allows distilleries to oprate and sell one commemorative product, so it is possible to buy Gentleman Jack, Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, the original No. 7 blend but filtered twice, at the distillery's White Rabbit Bottle Shop.
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