Last week, about a dozen people met in the Richmond dining room of the stately Virginia Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey. Having each spent just under $1,000 for a dinner, paired whiskeys, and stories from fourth-generation bourbon maestro Preston Van Winkle, they were seeking something transcendent: a spirit soaring high above the top shelf, somewhere in the mesosphere.
Preston’s great-grandfather Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle Sr. began selling bourbon from a horse and buggy in the 1890s and opened the Stitzel-Weller Distillery, just outside Louisville, Kentucky, on Derby Day in 1935, producing whiskey until he died, three decades later.
