by I don’t remember if our friend Don Richards even liked bourbon.
But once a year, ten or eleven of us – fraternity brothers from college – get together and raise a glass of good bourbon to Don’s memory. For nearly 30 years we’ve traveled around the country, usually someplace warm, to attend the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. We have visited Orlando, Austin, Jacksonville, San Antonio, and Atlanta, among many others.
The long weekend includes lots of eating, drinking, story retelling, catching up on how the wives, significant others, kids (and now grandkids) are doing, and staying up late recapturing, relitigating, and reliving our lost youth. All with the basketball games as an excuse to get together.
Don never attended one of the trips. He died before our 10-year college reunion in 1991.
Through the years, as our palates grew more a bit more sophisticated and wallets grew a bit fatter, we added bourbon to our annual libation list. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve always had an appreciation of all types of alcohol and distilled spirits. While in college, our chapter of Beta Theta Pi sponsored an all-you-can drink charity fundraiser back in the late 70s called “Drink for Those Who Can’t.” We lost $60. After more than 40 years of reflection on the subject, we will grant you things could have been handled better.
Our group of friends includes some guys who grew up in Kentucky and others who came to Centre College in Danville from out of state. Many still live out of state today, coming from Oregon, New York, and Tennessee. Along the way, we’ve done some bourbon distillery tours and all have a growing and great appreciation for Kentucky’s native spirit.
No one is quite sure when the toasting tradition for our friend Don started. But we do remember that the quality of what was in our glasses went up significantly in March 2019. That’s thanks to a bit of guilt and a major effort of payback from Dan Yates of Portland, Oregon.
“The year before, John (Bach) and I showed up at Danny (Pawley)’s house the night before the gathering,” Dan said. “We drink his bottle of Maker’s Mark. There was a bottle I didn’t really know much about. It was Pappy Van Winkle which had been given to Danny by an employee when he retired. Unfortunately, between 3 o’clock and 5 o’clock in the morning we killed the bottle. Danny was saving that special bottle for all of us to drink with him.”
It took nearly eight months of Dan searching and using his connections as the president of Portland Spirit Cruises and Events, a dinner boat company operating five vessels in Oregon. Eventually Dan found a bottle of distilled restitution to bring to the annual gathering.
In Atlanta the next year, Dan showed up with a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 20. I brought a dozen rocks glass from home to honor the $1500 secondary market valuation of our toasting liquid. (Thankfully, Dan was able to pay the $109 retail price.) We raised our glasses to Don, enjoying our memories as much as we did the $136 neat pours.
Later that night a group of guys who were a year behind us in the fraternity joined us at our rented house. We half-refilled the empty Pappy Van Winkle bottle from the nearest $30 bourbon bottle. When they arrived, we told them about our memorial toast and said we’d save half the coveted bottle for them. They were visibly touched by our thoughtfulness.
Sam Vogt, after slowly sipping his glass of Pappy Faux Winkle, said something like, “It’s good, but I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for it.” Good palate, Sam.
We’re not sure how, but we later learned that they discovered our ruse. Now that they know, we’re sorry for the deception.
We had to settle for bourbon we could actually afford the next year in Jacksonville when Dan came up short in his unicorn hunting. The pandemic canceled the next year’s tournament, so no basketball or bourbon was to be had.
At this year’s gathering, just a few weeks ago in Greenville, South Carolina, our toast returned to its proper place on the top shelf. Dan scored a bottle of Van Winkle Special Reserve Bourbon 12-year-old Lot B. Despite the large number of other bourbons we sampled (emptied) that weekend, the Buffalo Trace distilled nectar was the undisputed highlight pour.
We weren’t much on-key, but the Betas nationwide are known as the Singing Fraternity.
As undergraduates, our fraternity had a tradition of standing in a circle, passing and drinking from a three-handled sterling silver loving cup filled with beer as we sang:
“Oh, start the loving cup around,
Nor pass a brother by;
We all drink from the same canteen
In Beta Theta Pi.”
While Dan goes back on his search for next year’s luxury liquid, I’m going to do some research myself.
“Hey Siri, where can I buy a sterling silver loving cup? And is it okay to drink expensive bourbon out of it?”
I think our friend Don would have liked that.s
