The Fire Tower

When I was young, on the top shelf in our den stood several objects, most not likely so different from most objects on the top shelves in other people’s houses. In the middle was a small wooden box, four by six inches, stained in dark chestnut. To the left were several stacked books, none too intellectual in title, held upright by two flanked pieces of granite, and if you stood on your toes and looked close enough, you would see several layers of dust resting on top. This was after all, the top shelf. But to the right of the box sat an old half gallon-size wine jug, like those out of an old western movie, something you were not likely to see on the top shelf of another’s den. It remained half full for the better part of my childhood but did not hold wine. Instead, it held Wild Turkey Drink and was only sipped upon once per year in a ritualistic fashion.

Wild Turkey Drink was sweetened hard liquor, and its ingredients were only two fold - a fifth of genuine Wild Turkey brand whisky and a box of dissolved rock candy. My father had created the concoction when I was young – in fact before I can remember.

Currently I am not much of a boozer, but I have had a sip or two (or a pint or two) of hard liquor whisky in my lifetime to know that while whisky is fiery hot with alcohol, it is already sweetened thoroughly before you do anything to it like add raw sugar. So while most of the rock candy did dissolve in the whisky, not all of it did, and a decade later, before the last sips were drunk, crystals of sugar floated on the bottom of the jug.

With the turn of each November and the fading of the Fall to Winter, my father and I would gather in the den the night before the opening of the Fall season to commence the season by taking a glass of Wild Turkey Drink together.

My father would half fill a bourbon glass for himself, and I would half fill a shot glass for myself. We would sit on the couch in front of a warm fire, talk of turkey hunting stories of old, and sip on our wild concoction.