Daily Journal 12/22/25

Distressing news out of Kentucky yesterday, as Jim Beam announced they are planning to shut down production in Happy Hollow in Clermont on Jan. 1 through 2026. The Kentucky bourbon industry at large has had a dismal 2025, with tariffs utterly gutting international demand, and rising prices here in the U.S. causing a glut at home.

The Clermont distillery in Kentucky is responsible for making my two favorites — Basil Hayden and Knob Creek — as well as others, including the distillery’s flagship brand. The one small sliver of silver lining in this is that the company’s other distillery in Boston, Kentucky, will remain open, so batches of Makers Mark should not be impacted.

Longtime readers know that my love of Kentucky bourbon runs deep, and that my Grandpa Dee was a moonshiner during prohibition, with still operations in both Kentucky and West Virginia. (At the time, the town of Lewisburg was segregated. My grandpa supplied all the whiskey to the black section of town. On Sunday mornings, while everyone was at church, he would have my father help him load up the truck with barrels of booze and he’d deliver them to the speakeasies on that side of town). I’ve often tpyed with the idea of writing a nonfiction book about him and that time, and may yet do so one day.

I’ve got a bourbon collection here at home spanning over 75 bottles and brands, but I also always have mu;tiple “Go-To” bottles of Knob Creek, Basil Hayden, and Larceny on hand. I will have to start treating those first two like the others for a while.

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Well, Vortex’s physical store is closed now so I should be able to hop into writing, right?

Wrong.

Today’s To-Do List involves taking Red Sonja for an oil change, finishing some X-Mas shopping (I need one more gift each for my stepdaughter and one of my sisters-in-law), and boxing and shipping a bunch of orders for the online store. This evening, my youngest son and his mother and I will exchange presents and have dinner. Tomorrow I’ll head up the New Jersey to join Mary’s side of the family.

My goal is to have everything out of the store and into the warehouse by the end of the first week of January. Then I will be able to fully dive back into writing full time again.

Yesterday could have turned sad, but I got some nice anticipatory words of encouragement from Laurel Hightower, Todd Keisling, and my second ex-wife, because they know me, and they know how my brain works, and all three got in before my brain began going down that road. I am grateful to them for it.