Stephanie Adlington Talks Bourbon

The Siren Of The South Talks Kentucky’s Native Spirit

By Richard Thomas

If you’ve landed in the music capital of Nashville and gone looking for (gasp!) jazz instead of commercial country, odds are you have crossed paths with Stephanie Adlington. Maybe you didn’t catch her show, an understandable quirk of timing, but you certainly saw it advertised on a schedule.

Taking that a step further, if you’re a bourbon lover and could have gone to that show, yet missed it, you’ve committed a minor sin. Go straight to your parish priest and ask how many Hail Marys you should say! Adlington doesn’t make a casual reference to bourbon; she sings an full-fledged ode to it during a show while she’s sipping on your favorite libation throughout. The connection between music and bourbon is so “there,” that she was naturally included into the soundtrack for the bourbon documentary Straight Up.

Naturally, I reached out to Stephanie about our “Talks Whiskey” series. When I discovered one of her foremost loves in bourbon (and this coming from a woman who idealizes bourbon to a romantic level – see below) was Elmer T. Lee, I invited her to join me at Buffalo Trace Distillery. That, in its turn, led to the talking bourbon part.

RT: So, tell me about when and how you discovered bourbon?

SA: It’s my Father’s fault. I’m an only child and a girl, and my Dad and I connected on that when I came back from England. I moved over there when I was 20, which meant I could explore drinking earlier. I got started with Guinness Stout and G&Ts, very simply and very easy stuff. When I moved back to America, I got into bourbon. I also got into baseball at the same time, so I started watching baseball and drinking bourbon, and my Dad is a Jack Daniel’s guy.

Then when I moved to Nashville, I would always bring him back bottles of this and that, and we would have these little tastings. At the end of those, he would always say “Well, I kinda like my Jack better than that,” and I’d be “No you don’t! I just brought back seven different new flavors for you, so how can you go back to that one!” And that was how I discovered all these different bourbons.

RT: Speaking of being in England, what do you think about Scotch? I know that was before you started on bourbon, but…

SA: I like Scotch. The peatiness is a bit heavy for me, and so I’m more into bourbon. But I like Scotch. If I compare the two, which one do I want to buy today, it’s bourbon.

Another thing is that when I left America, I’d be at a party or something and people were drinking Budweiser. Then I’m in Britain with stouts and ales and these wonderful pubs, but then I come back to America and craft beer hadn’t really taken off yet. So, it was back to Bud. That turned me to looking around for something else.

I like craft beer, but I can’t drink it as much as I do bourbon, because beer makes me full and bourbon just makes me happy. So I prefer the happiness over the fullness.

RT: You’re show is called The Jazz, Pearls And Bourbon Review, and you call your style “Jazzicana,” which I haven’t seen used anywhere else yet.

SA: That is totally my thing.

RT: Then describe what your thing is, what that style is.

SA: Jazzicana is “a little bit of jazz, a little bit of blue, and a whole lot of story.” What I mean by that is I’m a big reader. If Flannery O’Connor or Tennessee Williams were musicians, as opposed to literary figures, what music and lyrics would they write? Jazzicana is what they would write. It would be jazzy, bluesy, and one hell of a dramatic feat.

So, my song “Pick Your Poison” is a swing tango, and you poison your cheating lover’s wine and bury him alive. I think that would be very Flannery O’Connor, in a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, Gothic, Southern light.

When I sing that song, I always say “raise a glass.” Everyone raises their glass, and I say “I want to dedicate this to all the cheaters in the room.” And everyone starts laughing.

RT: Then there is the song du jour, “I’ll Take Bourbon Over You.” We talked about that some back at Buffalo Trace, and how that was actually much more about how you feel about bourbon than how you felt about any particular guy. So, let’s focus on the former. Tell me about taking that and putting it on the page.

SA: Well, I had a bottle of bourbon and I sat there contemplating my relationship, and I started talking to my bourbon, as you sometimes do after you’ve had to much to drink. And I was like “Why can’t I just date you? You make me feel so good, you’re warm, you’re sweet, and all these things.” And I thought, “What else does bourbon do?” So, I started finding all these adjectives and got those down. I found myself saying “Yes, yes, yes, this is what I want in a man.” And I pretty much wrote the song with all these adjectives from the perspective of “I’m describing a human being, but I’m actually describing bourbon, and nobody knows that.”

So I’m telling this man that I’ve found someone who makes me feel like this, and by the time you get to the hook “I’ll take bourbon over you,” then everyone gets what it’s about. And it really fits well with the show, because I’m sipping on bourbon throughout my entire gig. It’s therapeutically good for my throat, and it makes me relaxed and happy. I usually do the song at the end of the first set or the beginning of the second set, and I’ve been drinking the whole time, so I’m always wondering who has been paying attention. By the time I get to that, I say “I wrote this song about someone I love very much,” and I’m holding the bourbon. And the song gets a little graphic towards the end, so if you haven’t been paying attention and you start thinking it’s about something else, that is on you at that point.

RT: That tumbler of bourbon is very much you doing your thing, and not a prop.

SA: Yes, it’s true. I used to do my shows with a glass of wine, but wine dries me out. When I started drinking bourbon, and what it would do is if you had any phlegm, it coats that. So I’m up there with a glass of bourbon and a glass of water, and I switch back and forth.

RT: About things you do at shows, you mentioned back at the distillery how you sometimes go around the room and ask people “what are you drinking?” What is the most colorful answer you’ve ever gotten back on that?

SA: How that got started was I was reading this book about Frank Sinatra, who was a big Jack Daniel’s drinker, and he took his with just one ice cube. That was his thing. In the book, it stated if somebody added Coca Cola or anything else to Jack, Sinatra would pretty much write you off. That struck me as interesting, because in my mind what Sinatra was saying was “This is my drink of choice, this is what it should be, why would you change it?”

With that in my mind, when I’m gigging and I have a small enough group, it’s one of my things: “what are you drinking?” And I found myself gravitating towards the idea that if they put Coca Cola in their drink, they must not be able to handle their liquor. I mean, that bourbon has been aged to perfection, why would you do that? Why would you add anything that but water?

Sometimes during a show, I see someone start with a Cosmo or something and end with a bourbon. And sometimes bourbon sales go up during a show, and a lot of time I get five or six bourbons bought for me during the show. That I start handing out to friends, because I can’t drink all that myself. Time to share the wealth! But I appreciate that they are listening and responding. And as we learned at Buffalo Trace, it’s all about what you like.

RT: People can be snooty about these things. One thing they are snooty about is glassware. I actually saw a picture of you with your tumbler. When you’re doing your thing at home, what do you pour into?

SA: I’m not terribly picky about it. I have a little wine glass when I want just a little, and other times I have a rocks glass.

Even when I’m drinking wine [at home], I drink it in a rocks glass. I can hold it in my hand, it’s more secure. I like that.

RT: I already know Elmer T. Lee is among your top favorites and you also like Buffalo Trace. What have you got on your shelf right now? Sadly, I know you don’t have any Elmer, but you do have that 1.75 l of Trace that you just picked up.

SA: Right now I have a Taylor, Jefferson’s Ocean, Eagle Rare, a Bulleit and Basil Hayden.

RT: You’ve in Nashville, which is a whiskey bar town. What are your favorite watering holes?

SA: Wherever I’m gigging. Seriously. I’m out so much, performing or networking, that my favorite place to drink is wherever I’m at. My one absolute favorite is Rudy’s Jazz Room, which is the only jazz club in town.