Adam Gopnik (20:24)
I was born March 9, 1957, Jim Beam's great grandson. But being Booker no's son became a hell of a lot bigger challenge than being Jim Beam's great grandson. To give you a little idea how my dad was years ago, he was in Chicago on a business trip and they were at a fancy restaurant and he ordered a country ham entree. They brought his lunch. The country ham did not meet his standards. Since Booker was a professional country ham cure, he told the PR guy with him, go out into the trunk of the car and get that ham. I've got bring it in here and I'm going to show this chef what country ham is supposed to taste like. The PR guy says, I don't think they'll let us bring food into this restaurant. That perturbed my father quite a bit and he said, go get the damn ham. The PR man, knowing that my father would throw a fit, went to the car, got the ham, brought it back, put it on the table. Dad summoned the chef, and, hell, he came out there, and he said, now, this is what country ham is supposed to taste like. And he cut a slice and gave it to the chef. Later, he cut more slices and fed it to the patrons in the restaurant. Now, my dad was that critical of a chef he didn't know. You can imagine how critical he was on me, on my life, you know. But it was, you know, my childhood and young adult life was a hell of a ride. You know, Booker was, you know, bigger than life. He was a big influence on me. And we. We had some conflicts. You know, he didn't really appreciate my partying, you know, my attitude and a lot of other things, you know, and our conflicts, they started, you know, back when I was in grade school. In the seventh grade, I was sent to military school. They send all good kids to military school, right? You know, And I spent my six years from the seventh grade to high school. And when I was a senior, my dad said, well, you've done pretty good, you know. Pick any college you want to go to. No problem. We'll take care of it. I said, okay, Pop. I was on scholarship. That sounds good. Well, you know, I'm looking around, you know, guys, school. There's a lot of Playboy magazines. I'm thumbing through Playboy magazine, and it says, top 10 party schools in the country. Ohio State was number one. Western Kentucky University down in Bowling Green was number two. I read the article. I said, damn, I want to go to Western. Well, you know, here it was close to home. I'm from Bardstown. My mother, being the devout Catholic, going to church every morning, she wanted me to go to Notre Dame. Booker wanted me to go to University of Kentucky because he started at UK Never finished. Jim Beam's son T. Jeremiah, and his daughter Mildred went to UK and graduated. So I can remember going down to the payphone. Now, this was back in 1975 before, where everybody had cell phones in their pockets, dropped a quarter in, made the collect call back home. Booker accept the charges. We chatted a little bit, and I declared where I wanted to go to college. And I can remember he said, you want to go where? I said, western Kentucky University. He said, why? You want to go there? Obviously, he knew the reputation of Bowling Green and the partying going on down there, but he went along with it. Later that year, when we took me back, took Me down there to school and dropped me off. You couldn't have a car your first year. So he had to take me down and drop me off. As we're carrying my stuff into the dormitory, they're putting up a placard on the bulletin board. Hundred keg, beer, party. All you can drink, five bucks. He looked at me and said, I guess you'll be there tonight. Yeah, if I can find a ride. He looked at me and said, boy, you ain't gonna make it here. Three semesters later, I flunked out, but I had a plan. I was gonna intercept the letter when they threw me out. So he didn't know about it, and I would ease the news to him. As my luck had it, the night the letter came, or the day the letter came, I was out with some of my friends, drinking a little bit, partying a little bit. That happened to be a day. Dad came home early from work. He got the letter first at dinner, mom sitting there and dad, he comes up with a question. Where are you going to college next semester? You know, Western. No, you're not. As he threw the letter across the table and it slid in front of my plate, my life changed dramatically. Right then. He found me a job at his friend's liquor store there in Bardstown, Toddy's. He gave me six nights a week working, and Booker watched my every move. You know, it was. We still had conflicts, though. He never liked the length of my hair. He never liked the whiskers. You know, we just always. We battled, battled battle, and, you know, that was just one of them things, father and sons. Fathers always want their sons to do better than they did. But, you know, after eight years and a lot of his money, I finally got out of college. You know, my dad, he had one rule for me that he always stated, if you want to come to work at Jim Beam, you've got to finish college. I didn't finish, and you got to. So I'd finished. I was out. I was looking for a job. Booker looked at me, well, we don't have a spot for you. Okay. Well, at that time, we were sponsoring a country music artist, Hank Williams Jr. And I was kind of friends with Hank and the boys, and I'd been to several concerts, and they kind of needed a road manager. Hank had fired him. And I kind of stood in and helped them out. And I remember going home, telling Dad, I said, I think I found me a job. He said, what's that? And I said, well, I'm gonna go work for Hank. He Said, boy, that ain't no life for me or you either. He'd been to a few concerts. He'd seen what the hell goes on at them things. Funny, the next week they had a job for me at Jim Beam. Not a real glamorous job for Jim Beam's great grandson, though. Night shift bottling line supervisor. I think it was a test to see if I'd grown up, if I could hold a job or if I would even show up. Booker was still kind of watching me. We hadn't really gotten together too much, but, you know, they kind of moved me around quite a bit. Whenever a supervisor was out, they'd stick me in. It didn't matter, warehouse, whatever, cutting the grass. Somebody was gone. They needed. They stuck me in there. I did everything, you know, and this went on. But it's the same time, you know, Dad's job changed because, you know, he introduced the Booker's bourbon and the small batch bourbon collection, our ultra premiums. And he had to start traveling around a little bit. Well, actually a lot. He traveled the world and, you know, he did this for a time. It was kind of wearing on him. Booker wasn't real crazy about the lines at the airport. He wasn't a very patient guy. The seats in the airplanes didn't fit him. The hotel rooms, he wasn't real crazy about sleeping in those beds. And the three hour dinners really bummed him out, you know, and that was his life. That's what you do when you're out there on the road promoting. I mean, you do that stuff. And he'd come home from a long trip. He was about 70 years old. He'd been over to Japan, hadn't had a very good trip. We're sitting out on the back patio over there having a little drink, and he, he said, well, man, I hated this trip. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, he put me in his traditional Japanese hotel. I slept on the floor on bamboo mats. Said I wasn't worth a damn. I said, ooh. He said, the flight back, the seat didn't fit. My back hurt, my hip hurt. Get back. Custom lines was forever. And top it off, they lost my damn luggage. So, you know, he was fed up. He said, I'm done with this. I said, what do you mean you're done? You can't quit. He said, I'm not going to quit. I'm going to retire. I said, what? He said, think about it. Pro ballplayers, when they get to the end of their career, hell, they retire. Even racehorses they retire them, too. That's what I'm gonna do. I said, really? He said, it's time for me to step aside and you're gonna start doing this stuff. I said, what, me? You know, I never. I've been. I was working at the distillery down there. I wasn't going on a road. He said, I've talked to them in Chicago. They're gonna give you a shot. So I said, well, okay. He picked it up his glass and he said, you got to make people forget about me and think about you. Hmm. Okay. As he walked in, I'm sure my mouth was hung open because all of a sudden now my ass was gonna be on them planes flying around. And we did it and I started doing it, you know, and dad, his hail started faltering a little bit on him in 2003, and when we. He had a little stay in the hospital and he had to do some dialysis, his kidneys were kind of malfunctioning a little bit. So we had to travel back and forth between Bardstown and down here in Louisville for his dialysis treatment. During that 14 day stay, I came and stayed here in the hospital with him. And on those rides back and forth, we did a lot of talking. It was kind of wild because, you know, we talked about stuff we never talked about. We talked about the bourbon industry, the way he saw it, what I was seeing. We talked about my son Freddie growing up, what he was going to do. We talked about everything. I guess you'd kind of call it bonding, you know, stuff that we never talked about when I was growing up. So it was kind of cool, you know, on one of the rides, he got to tell me how proud he was of me. He'd been checking in with all the guys around the country, and they'd been telling me, oh, Fred does a hell of a job. He might even be better than you. I'm sure he didn't like hearing that stuff. But, you know, I guess the deal was he was proud of what was going on. Well, you know, his kidney functions kind of was faltering a little bit, and he developed gangrene in his toe. But we brought him down here to the doctor down here at Jewish Hospital, and the same doctor had been treating on him. That doctor said, oh, yeah, you got gangrene, mister? No, we're going to have to take that leg off. And dad looked at that doctor and he said, really? He said, well, if I don't let you take his leg off, how long am I going to live? That doctor Said, oh, that's serious. Said, you know, it'll spread, get in your body, maybe a month. He said, really? Okay. He said, well, if I don't let you cut this leg off and I quit doing this dialysis, how long am I going to live? So that's real serious. He said, you know, maybe a week. He said, really? He said, well, Fred, take me on home. He said, I'm gonna go out of this old world, Doc, with everything I come in with. I ain't gonna let you cut this leg off. And as we were going out the door, he said, by the way, you can cancel that damn dialysis, too. I'm done with that. Well, you know, I got kind of quiet. Wow, that's a hell of a call. But we went on, got in the truck, we started driving back home, and dad asked me, he said, what do you think about the decision I made? I said, well, hell, Pop, it's your ride. If you're ready to jump off, that's the way it goes. I mean, you know, it's your call. He said, hey, boy. He said, quality of life means more than quantity of life. I ain't having no fun. What the hell? I said, well, okay, Pop. And I answered the question, yes, sir. And he got on me and said, you don't have to say sir anymore. What the hell? Said, you know, we've been doing this all your life. That's okay. Well, naturally, I said, sir again from military school and growing up with him as a father. I mean, hell, that's what you said. So, you know, we got home and I called up my dad's buddies and let them know the situation. I said, you want to come see your old friend? Here's what the doc said. So a lot of them came by to see him. They go in, come out. They might take a drink. They tell old stories. Some of them come out, tears coming down their face. One of his old buddies come out and say, you know, your old man's the only guy that I know that could have his wake and be at it, too, you know. Booker lived another about another two and a half, three weeks. He passed away in his sleep, peaceful. Everything was good. You know, when we age the bourbon, we lose about 4% a year to evaporation. We call that the angel share. But when dad passed away, I haven't really put a pencil to it yet, but we're probably losing 6 or 8% a year now. You know, I really didn't know it, but, you know, my entire life, my dad was training me for what I'm doing today, but I didn't have a clue. You know, that was just his way of training me. And, you know, I'm known as Jim Beam's great grandson, but I'm proud to be Booker knows, son.
