Page 23 of Bourbon Girl, Part 2 of 6
"Of course I was serious." He turned to face me fully, his dark eyes intent. "What do you need?"
"I have a last name now—Church. But nobody seems to know a first name or where this person might be now." I gestured to my mostly empty notebook. "What I really need are employee directories from the bourbon distilleries. Do you have any idea how I could get my hands on those?"
Jett's face broke into a slow grin that transformed his usually serious expression. "As a matter of fact, I do."
My pulse quickened. "Really?"
"I have them," he said simply, as if he were telling me the weather forecast. "Most of them, anyway."
I stared at him in disbelief. "You have bourbon industry employee directories?"
"I sell honey to a lot of the distilleries—they use it in specialty batches, gift products, things like that. Part of building those business relationships means staying in touch with key personnel over the years." He shrugged as if this were the most natural thing in the world. "I've got directories going back to when I started the apiaries, plus some older ones I inherited from the beekeeper I bought the business from."
The notebook slipped from my fingers. "Jett, that's... that's incredible. When can I see them?"
"How about tomorrow? We don't have any tours scheduled, so you could come out to the farm and use my office. We can go through them systematically, look for anyone named Church."
"You'd do that? Spend your day off helping me search through old directories?"
"I told you I wanted to help, and I meant it. This search of yours—it matters. And if I can do something to help you find the answers you're looking for, then that's what I'm going to do."
The sincerity in his voice made my throat tight with unexpected emotion. After months of carrying this burden alone, of feeling like an outsider looking for something that might not even exist, here was someone offering not just moral support but actual, practical assistance.
"Yes," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I'd love that. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Jett said with a smile. "We might spend the whole day looking through dusty old phone books and company rosters without finding anything."
Or, I thought to myself,we might find exactly what we were looking for. Hope bubbled up in my chest like carbonation.
August 28, Thursday
secondary fermentationa rare step in spirits, but sometimes referenced in extended yeast activity
JETT'S HOMEoffice occupied a converted bedroom with tall windows that overlooked the pasture where his hives dotted the landscape. The morning light streamed across a sturdy wooden desk covered with manila folders, photocopied directories, and legal pads filled with our notes. The air smelled of old paper and coffee, with an underlying sweetness that seemed to permeate everything on the property.
We'd been working side by side for nearly three hours, our shoulders occasionally brushing as we leaned over the same document or passed materials back and forth. The proximity felt natural rather than awkward, like we'd found an easy rhythm in our shared detective work.
"Here's another one," I said, running my finger down a column of employee names from Buffalo Trace's 1993 directory. "Rebecca Church, accounting department."
Jett looked up from the Wild Turkey roster he'd been scanning, his dark hair falling across his forehead. "That makes three total—Rebecca Church at Buffalo Trace, Linda Church at Maker's Mark, and David Church at Jim Beam."
I added the new information to our list. "Two women and one man. The women could be sisters, wives, daughters—any family connection might lead us to other Church family members who worked in the industry but weren't in these particular directories."
"Exactly what I was thinking." Jett stretched his arms above his head, his shirt pulling tight across his chest. "Let me get ussomething to drink, then we'll start cross-referencing addresses and see if we can find any patterns."
He disappeared toward the kitchen, and I used the break to look around the office for the first time. The space was organized but lived-in, with bookshelves lined with volumes on agriculture, beekeeping, and sustainable farming. A framed diploma from the University of Kentucky hung beside photographs of hives and wildflower meadows, and a blue ribbon declaring "Best in Show - Kentucky State Fair" was pinned to a cork board covered with receipts and business cards.
Through the window, I could see the white hive boxes buzzing with activity that made my skin crawl despite the glass barrier between us and them. Even from this distance, I could see the dark clouds of bees moving in and out of the hive entrances, their collective energy both fascinating and terrifying.
Jett returned with two tall glasses of iced tea that clinked with ice cubes, the amber liquid sweetened with what I assumed was his own honey. The first sip was perfectly balanced—tart and sweet with a floral complexity that spoke of wildflower meadows and careful craftsmanship.
"This is incredible," I said, settling back into my chair. "How did you get into beekeeping? It seems like such an unusual career choice."
He leaned against the desk, cradling his own glass and gazing out at his hives with obvious pride. "I studied Agricultural Sciences at UK, focusing on sustainable farming and soil ecology. During my junior year, a professor brought in a local beekeeper to speak about pollinator decline and the impact on agricultural systems."
"And you were hooked?"
"Completely." His eyes lit up with the same enthusiasm I'd seen when Dylan talked about bourbon craftsmanship. "I started with two hives as a side project for a sustainability classand discovered I had a real instinct for it. There's something about understanding their behavior, working with their natural rhythms instead of against them."
