Buy Something Today

Are you one of those people who feel like you should at least buy a Coke when you use the bathroom at McDonalds? Have PBS or NPR ever successfully guilted you into donating? If so, and you’re a regular reader of this blog, this message is for you.

This blog is free because I hope you will come here, like what you see, buy something, like that, and buy something else. Not out of guilt, but out of self-interest, since everything I sell here is more of the same—clear, reliable information about bourbon whiskey and related subjects.

What is there to buy? It’s a goddamn cornucopia. There are the books, including Bourbon, Strange, the new one; and the newsletter, The Bourbon Country Reader. With the documentary “Made and Bottled in Kentucky,” you can practically see the bourbon renaissance being born. (It was made in 1991-92.)

The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Taste is about that lord of the unicorns, A. H. Hirsch Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey, and the strange tale of how it came to be. Small Barrels Make Lousy Whiskey is a provocative, little ebook about an experiment at Buffalo Trace. It will cost you 99 cents to hate it.

Bourbon, Straight, the gateway drug for many of you, is now in its 11th year and still going strong.

For something completely different, there is Blues Legends, my 1995 multi-media package (book + CD) about the mid-century electric blues artists who most influenced rock and roll. You can only get it through Amazon Marketplace but if you select "Made and Bottled in Kentucky" (sound familiar?) as the vendor, you will get a pristine copy still in the original shrinkwrap.

To review all of your Chuck Cowdery book options in one place, go here.

All of my books are available in print and ebook except Blues Legends (print only) and Small Barrels Make Lousy Whiskey (ebook only). Everything tangible (i.e., not electronic) is available from Amazon or directly from me except the newsletter, which you can only get here.

I’ll let you in on a secret. Amazon sells most of my products for less than I do. But if you want a book autographed you can only get that from me.

The Bourbon Country Reader, which you can only get here, is quaintly old-fashioned, ink on paper, delivered to your home or office by a uniformed government representative six times a year, or thereabouts.

Another product I sell is me, as in personal appearances. Usually only large groups can bring me in from out of town, but here in Chicago I do classes and tastings for groups of all sizes, and while a group of 20 is typical, I did one for a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary. Contact me via email if you’re interested.

While I’m advertising, I will point out that the only advertising here is my advertising for my products. I’m not trying to sell your eyeballs to anybody else.

To me, the first rule of writing is ‘Respect Your Reader’s Time,’ so thank you for indulging this brief, commercial message. For it is winter and coal is so dear.