On paper, Kevin Link and I have nothing in common. He’s a sixty-three-year-old CPA and highly successful businessman who thinks in numbers and plots out his every move. I’m a thirty-two-year-old environmental journalist who thinks in abstractions and struggles to plan more than a week ahead. Life would never have put us in the same room had my sister not married his son, and had he and his wife, Joanna, not been so intentional about folding my sister’s whole family into theirs and inviting me, over the years, to weddings, long weekends at the lake house, Easters, birthdays, and baby showers. But soon into this strange relationship of circumstance, Kevin and I discovered a shared interest stronger than all our differences: Blanton’s.
Produced by the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, Blanton’s debuted in 1984 as the world’s first commercially marketed single-barrel bourbon. I could talk about the vanilla and caramel notes or how the flavor profile always hits slightly differently, but the truth is, I’m especially fond of the funny squat bottle that sits like a cheerful grenade on the shelf.
In an even more brilliant marketing move, the distillery puts out eight different bottle stoppers in a set that features a horse and jockey in different strides representing the stages of a horse race, ending in victory. Each stopper is marked with a single letter that spells “Blanton’s” when the set has been completed. I have fallen for this marketing strategy, and so has Kevin Link. For years, he’s been in pursuit of the full set, and I have lived vicariously through his mission. Yes, you can purchase the collection, but he wants to acquire them naturally through a strategy he calls “ramping up the drinking.”
Whenever I walk into the Links’ home in Atlanta, I first head for the bar to check the progress of the Blanton’s set and to see what other bottles have appeared since my last visit—single-barrel Weller pops up occasionally, and I know he’s got some Pappy hidden somewhere. Inevitably, the investigation leads to discussion of what he’s been drinking and a pour from the Blanton’s bottle Kevin is currently working through.
Then the conversation flows. He’s given me career advice, shared how important it was for him to create a tight-knit family, and told me his thoughts on the keys to a good marriage (like accepting the differences each person brings to the partnership; he forgives Joanna for preferring red wine over bourbon). We’ve parsed the history of the Masters, examined the merits of the Boy Scouts allowing girls to join, talked about how difficult it is to lend out your sister or your kid to another family at Christmastime once they get married, and discussed the challenges—and joys—of parenting. We’ve tiptoed into politics and religion. He’s convinced me that to-do lists are things of power and that vacation itineraries—planned down to the minute and sent out a few days before the trip—can actually drum up excitement and maximize fun. (There is always, always a large block of time reserved for happy hour.) I’ve convinced him to value king snakes because they eat venomous snakes and to appreciate the anoles in the garden. We’re still working on letting leaf litter accumulate on the lawn as natural mulch since the messiness makes him twitch.
Almost ten years into my sister’s marriage to Kevin’s son, Kevin is down to his last Blanton’s letter—he needs the second “n” to complete the set, which he’s been in pursuit of for a good long while despite clever tactics like ordering en masse on Uber Eats when he has a coupon to get a 20 percent discount.
I won’t say I’ve become meticulously organized or financially savvy, or that Kevin is quite ready to sign up as a full-blown environmentalist. But I will say that I cleaned my car out the last time I went to Atlanta, and that this year, he didn’t relocate the birds that are nesting on his newly updated porch and ruining the paint.
We’ve joked that maybe Blanton’s doesn’t even really make that second “n”—prove us wrong, Blanton’s—but I don’t think we really mind that the set isn’t quite complete. There’s something to be said for having an ongoing mission, for sharing a few extra pours, and most of all, for making an unlikely friend. See you at the next gathering, Kevin. I know what we’ll be drinking.
Lindsey Liles joined Garden & Gun in 2020 after completing a master’s in literature in Scotland and a Fulbright grant in Brazil. The Arkansas native is G&G’s digital reporter, covering all aspects of the South, and she especially enjoys putting her biology background to use by writing about wildlife and conservation. She lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.
