A Man Alone In Bourbon Country

Unsolved smalltown murders, tornado touched whiskey and racking up the miles in a musty rental car.

Photo by Jeff Frank on Unsplash

I need Jesus or I need whiskey,
Whatever works best to get me through.
– Tim McGraw

America.
Land of opportunity.
Land of the free.

But perhaps, more than all of that, land of contradiction.

Once vilified, and even outlawed entirely during prohibition, America’s relationship with alcohol is deeply conflicted. For evidence of that, you don’t need to look much further than Elijah Craig.

Often called The Father of Bourbon, Craig was both a reverend and a distiller. A microcosm of the puritan-sinner dichotomy that exists within so many Americans to this day.

From country artist Chase Rice “lost somewhere between Jack Daniel’s and Jesus” to Justin Moore, who sings about how his “mama loved Jesus, daddy loved Jack Daniel’s”, there’s no getting away from the inexplicable link between how much Americans love whiskey and religion.

I’ve never been a particularly religious man. Maybe that’s why, when I felt compelled to do a little soul searching this summer, I settled not on an…