Family, Legacy, and Bourbon with Wright Thompson

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

Msnbc, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Government, Politics, Chris Hayes, Why Is This Happening?, Withpod, Versant, Ms Now, News, Society & Culture, Versant Media

4.6 • 9.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What can bourbon teach us about legacy, nostalgia, and consumer trends? Pappy Van Winkle is some of the most coveted bourbon in the world, but it took three generations of labor and loss to reach this pinnacle. Author Wright Thompson spent years with the third generation Van Winkle, who brought the family business back from the brink, studying the careful craftsmanship and rich history that goes into every barrel they produce. With a drink so inextricably tied to a distinct time and place, Wright found an opportunity to interrogate the mythology of the South, the seduction of nostalgia, and what it means to make things that last. RELATED READING: Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last by Wright Thompson Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey by Reid Mitenbuler

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are so many moments reading your book where you just feel pegged as a mark.
0:04.3	You know what I mean?
0:05.3	Because you're like, yes, oh yes, I will walk away from a cable news show and I'll get
0:11.5	us to stillery and I'll be at one with time and oldness.
0:17.3	And then there's someone there to sell you whatever the consumer product version of that
0:22.0	is.
0:23.0	Yeah.
0:24.0	And by the way, you walk away from that cable news show.
0:25.2	You were not buying any more Pappy Van Winkle, my friend.
0:31.3	Hello and welcome to Wise is happening with me, your host, Chris Ais.
0:38.8	Happy New Year everybody.
0:40.3	By the time you're hearing this, it will be 2021.
0:44.4	And there's nothing really left to say about how awful 2020 was.
0:50.1	I got no, I got no novel takes about that.
0:53.3	But I am glad the years over, I do look forward to at the very least the end of sort of pandemic
1:00.3	life, at least, and hopefully in the second half of 2021, things like, you know, going
1:06.4	into other people's houses and going out to eat in restaurants and travel and things
1:10.8	like that.
1:11.8	So I hope everyone is is celebrating.
1:13.2	And in the spirit of celebration, slightly different topic today than normal.
1:19.4	It is the time of year when normally families get together and you do a lot of eating and
1:25.8	drinking.
	...

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