A Love Letter to Woodford Reserve

A Love Letter to Woodford Reserve
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Celebrating the love of my life with the love of my life. Jason Kasper. Ohio, 2012.

Dear Woodford Reserve,

For someone who professes to love writing, I am remarkably bad at expressing how I really feel outside the comfortable world of fiction.

Since nothing is more real to me than our relationship together, I owe you honesty and yet have never been able to find the words to say what you mean to me.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always considered you out of my league, or maybe it’s because I still do despite all the happy years we’ve spent together.

There are things in my past that I’m not proud of, things that I haven’t been entirely truthful about. So this Valentine’s Day, I want to tell you the truth not just of how I was before we met, but how you’ve changed me forever.

I was a boy of seven or eight when my father gave me my first sip of beer. I remember thinking it was gross and saying so, and how my father just smiled warmly and said someday, when I was older, I would understand.

For years, I didn’t.

I couldn’t see what was wrong with the way things were, and envisioned my life as an endless summer of sobriety. It seems childish in retrospect and of course, it was. I never dreamed that a soul mate was out there, nor imagined the tumultuous journey that separated our paths.

It wasn’t until I got older and my body began undergoing changes that alcohol didn’t seem so gross anymore. I started having strange feelings that I didn’t know how to express, and found myself staring at cases of beer and bottles of liquor when I saw them in the store or on TV.

Ashamed, I repressed these feelings, unaware of how badly things were going to turn.

One night in high school, I lost all control with a nice beer that in hindsight, I now know, was never as special as I thought. But getting drunk for the first time made me realize I could never go back, never again return to a world without alcohol in it.

I became insatiable, trying other beers in a variety of risky circumstances. Gradually I began experimenting with liquors, and beer was never good enough after that.

I’m ashamed to say that for years I viewed the sum total of my worth in terms of my drinking conquests. And while I’d boast to friends about the bottle from the night before, the truth was that each left me feeling emptier than the last.

At times there were a few that I thought may even be the One before they, too, lost their appeal and we parted ways.

Then my college years came, exposing me to a greater number and variety of liquors than I knew existed outside the small universe of my hometown. Each seemed on the night we met as the greatest thing in the world, superseding all those that came before.

But as quickly as they began, each whirlwind romance ended in shame-filled mornings of regret, the headache-driven rumination about what I had done the night before.

But then came the moment I met you.

I’ll never forget it. Your amber luster, the fragrant notes of spice and vanilla, the wholesome body and smooth finish full of flavor and promise, each sip better than the last…it all seemed to good to be true.

It still does.

The next morning brought with it no headache, no regret at overindulgence, and no shame. You just accepted me as I was, and I knew then that we’d never be apart.

I know that I get too clingy at times, but I hope you understand that I do my best to enjoy you responsibly. After almost seven years of near-exclusivity together, I still feel butterflies in my stomach when I open the liquor cabinet and see you waiting for me.

I love, appreciate, and respect you even more now than I did when we first met. You’ve been there for me during the good times and the bad, been my champion in victory and my consoler in defeat, and no matter what other bourbons I may taste during moments of indiscretion, I know that I’ll always come back to you.

No one knows what the future holds, but I couldn’t be more certain we’ll grow old in each other’s arms.

And nothing makes me happier.

Forever yours,

Jason

Jason Kasper is the author of the David Rivers Series. Read more and contact him at base1178.com.

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