Pappy's Big Adventure

I've made a few mentions of my affinity for Pappy VanWinkle Bourbon's before...uh, actually there's a quite a lot of Pappy on this blog. Anyway, it can be difficult to get this stuff. How difficult? Well, this year I noticed that the UK retailers seemed to have plenty, (in contrast to US retailers it seemed), so I ordered a few bottles and had them shipped to a colleague who lives there. Then, my US based boss kindly offered to bring my shipment back from his next European trip for me. This turned into a bit of a "Flat Stanley" of  Pappy travels...

First pick up at the hotel. Uh...

Pappy's first stop from the UK was in our Austria Office

Update from the boss: Pappy had an adventure today.  No, Pappy is not going to college, Pappy visited Bratislava, Slovakia...the Former Soviet Union FSU.  This picture is taken just outside of town overlooking the lovely (not) countryside. Yes, that is snow.

Two days later, next email update reads:
Subject: Customs
Body: One thought. If I need it I might ask you to email the receipt, should have thought about that earlier.  Do you have it?   If so have it handy, if I need it it will be in 30-40 min

30 minutes later: Through. No worries. No hassle. All 4 Pappys are in the USA. No customs fees.

The elder Pappy relaxin' by the pool in Florida...

Boss safely drops Pappy off for me!

And the moral of the story is: have your Pappy couriered by a non-bourbon drinker. Seriously, I offered my boss the 10 year in appreciation for his trouble but he said it would just be wasted on him!

There are also some really good stories of getting your booze into the US at Whiskey Advocate, (an excellent site by the way).  My favorite story was the 'holy water for the Church of Malt"