andrewginty, Flickr Creative Commons

Dear T— and K—,

This is a message attached to a bottle.

That pretty hunk of glass contains grass and lumber all mixed together and aged a minimum of 16 years.  The grain and the wood have been together so long that they don’t remember when they once were little green shoots, much less tiny seeds containing nothing but limitless potential.

As barley and oak they were certainly good enough, but together they are magical. Distilled into alcohol and poured into a big oak barrel, the barley works its way into the wood’s grain and absorbs all of those delicious flavors that we swear we can taste when we drink whiskey: burnt caramel, toasted marshmallow, vanilla, oak, on and on.  The cask in turn mellows out the alcohol, leaving plenty of space for it to grow into something complex, loved, and valuable.

All it takes is patience and a willingness to give up a little bit of one’s self in exchange for something even better, and grass and lumber become something exponentially greater.  I guess that’s the message in a bottle that accompanies this message attached to a bottle.

You are no longer grass and lumber. You are something greater, and together you are magical.

Congratulations on your wedding and drink up,

-James