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

"Exploring this part of Kentucky is one of my favorite drives in the world, following State Highway 1967 and Iron Works Pike, turning on narrow lanes built alongside short stone walls. Above me stretched a canopy of green leaves. The sun coming through the branches landed on the blacktop in dappled patches of light. My purpose wasn’t completely aimless though. I’d driven here, over hill and dale, with a mission: to find the ruins of an old mansion, hidden from the road by pastures and oaks, which I’ve had described to me in such fanciful terms that I don’t fully believe anything that dramatic could really be standing. A local horse lover told me which unmarked iron gate to approach, and when my car got close, the gate opened. The land is now owned by one of those powerful families who’ve long come and gone from the world of thoroughbred racing. This one made its money in the life insurance game. I’m a middle-aged man with elevated liver enzymes and high cholesterol, so I’ve had to consider dying as a real thing, and I find my immediate reaction is this strange desire to leave behind monuments to myself, whether they come in the form of a book about bourbon or in letters to friends and family. The monuments we erect—shouting into the wind that we were once alive and had hopes and dreams—often end up becoming a shrine to the fallacy and futility of that desire itself."

"Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last" by Wright Thompson: https://a.co/eecwHbG