The Story of The Hydraulic Bourbon

There sits the hydraulic bourbon, tucked in the corner of my kitchen, right where it was left (near the cookbook rack and my grass cutting shoes).

Gather around as I share with you the story of the hydraulic bourbon!

Back in 2018, Adam Stumpf, owner of Stumpy’s Spirits, came to my 12-12 party (a yearly party I do to celebrate the life of my father who died on 12-12-12 to remember the importance of living your life to the fullest while remembering those that you love that can’t make it) with a dusty in his hand. For those of you who just dabble in bourbon, a dusty is a term for an old bourbon find… a bottle that likely has dust on it based on it’s age, but, because it’s bourbon, with proper storage in a glass bottle, it doesn’t go bad so you can enjoy it decades, heck centuries after it was originally made.

Adam had found this old bottle as only he could. He was buying some farming equipment and the farmer had a box of old bottles, most of which were empty, but one still had some liquid in it.

Adam came to the party and announced he brought it on this special day to share with friends.

Wow, that’s nice. It really seems to fit in with the spirit of what this party is all about I remember thinking to myself at the time. He went on to put an exclamation point on to what he did, by noting how much of a treat we were likely going to be in for as you could tell this viscosity of this bourbon even in the bottle without tasting it.

Adam’s talking about this bottle and how he nearly cracked it open the moment he found and drank it on the spot, but thought of this party and elected to share it with friends.

What an amazing man!

Then, as he’s sharing this story, I notice this scrawl, in pencil across the tattered label on the front of the bottle. It’s kind of hard to read because it’s faded a bit through the years and that old loopy penmanship can be tough to read, but as I looked closer, you could read, “Hydraulic Oil,” on the label.

Yep, Adam Stumpf had brought a bottle of dusty hydraulic oil to the party to share with friends.

We all had a good laugh and that should probably be the end of the story, but it’s not.

The 12-12 party is an all-day affair so as it finally came to a close and all guests were gone, we’re cleaning up and reflecting back on a great day with friends as those that knew him and those that had never met him remembered my Dad. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see that dusty, hydraulic oil bottle tucked in the corner of my kitchen on the floor, behind a book rack with cookbooks and my grass cutting shoes underneath it.

Stumpy left that hydraulic oil in my kitchen!

Now, from his perspective, I get it. It’s not something you can just toss in the trash. It’s a hazardous material you would need to take to a center that specializes in the disposal of this sort of thing. You can deal with that, or, you can just leave it on the floor by some old shoes and let someone else deal with it. I’d probably go for the shoes drop-off option myself.

So, here we are, now three years later and there that bottle sits… gathering more dust. I keep threatening to take it over to Stumpy’s Spirits and hide it somewhere in the distillery, but, I get such a laugh out of that old, nasty-looking bottle sitting on the floor, I just leave it there as the reminder of the time Adam Stumpf got the best of me!