He pulled Autumn in for a one-armed hug. He’ddarted in for that comment and was jumping back out of range. “I’m going back to the office to work a little more. You mind locking up when you leave?”
She patted his back. “Will do. Love you, big bro.”
“I know you’re testing products,” he grudgingly admitted. “You do good work. But you’re still my sister and I’m gonna give you shit.” He started to walk away but stopped. “Oh, and I only take myself that seriously because I’m a big deal.”
She snorted and flicked a rag at him. He danced away, smirking, then he disappeared from the bar.
I helped her wipe down and put the dishes away.
On the way out of the bar, she flipped off the lights and locked the door to the outside, but she led me through the entry into the main distillery. A little store was on the far end, tucked into a corner next to another wall of windows that opened into the still room.
Autumn caught me looking. “You haven’t seen the rest of Copper Summit, have you?”
Surprised I was interested, I shook my head. “No, you mind?”
She hooked an arm through mine. “Only if you promise not to zone out when I geek out.” She towed me to the windows. Giant copper-and-steel stills filled one end of the room. A small ladder led to a platform between some squat but still quite large tanks. The ceilings were high and the walls were a mix of cinder block and rock, much different than the rugged wood and rock exterior that made the place look more like it belonged in the mining industry. Metal piping ran between the pots and stills and a maze of plumbing trailed down from the ceiling and up from the floor.
“The mash tanks are the short tanks. Let’s go in so you can smell them.”
“I’ve never been asked to smell something by a woman.”
She grinned. “Who better to do it than your wife?” She tugged me toward one of the mash tanks. Inside, a yellowish mix was bubbling. The sight reminded me of soggy cornflakes. “The yeast are busy at work. When we were younger, we called the bubbles yeast farts.” She hovered her hand over the top of the suspension. “You can smell it better from here and feel the heat.”
I sniffed. A fruity, bready smell hit my nose, much stronger than the warm-grain scent of the rest of the place.
“It’ll create fewer bubbles each day,” she explained. “And it’ll get browner. Then we call it distiller’s beer and it gets piped to the distillation tanks, where we’ll turn it to moonshine, basically, and then distill it down some more.”
I’d been raised mere miles from this place and I’d never gotten a tour. I’d been in the grocery store or walking downtown and heard tourists exclaim how cool Copper Summit was. I hadn’t thought much about it back then. Copper Summit was just another thing I’d left behind.
She led me to the stills. “Do you know how many gallons of bourbon we can get from five hundred gallons of distiller’s beer?”
“What happens if I’m wrong?”
She hummed. “You don’t like being wrong, do you?”
Not at all. “Fifty gallons?”
“One.” Her smile was the nerdy kind she’d warned me about. She was in her element in the distillery. Andin the school. She was lucky to have more than one place where she excelled. Bourbon Canyon provided both of them.
There was nothing here for me without Percival Farms.
“How many gallons in a barrel?” I asked to keep my mind from mulling over how I’d made my place in Las Vegas.
“Fifty-three, but we never get out that many gallons.”
“The angel’s share?”
Her eyes lit at my very limited knowledge of distillery terms. “Every year we age a barrel, we lose a percent of the product, but you also get to extract more of the flavors and sugars from the wood.”
“Kind of weird to think you flavor your alcohol with wood.”
“Oak, specifically, but we like to play around with different oak varieties.” She shrugged and looked around, her fond gaze taking in the building. I could see it in her eyes. To her, Copper Summit was a work of art, but it was also comfort. It was passion. It was home.
She’d never leave. I’d never stay.
“The other buildings on-site are the barrel houses. Those are better to check out during the day.” She led me back toward the main entry. “Copper Summit also employs its own delivery drivers. Daddy was really proud of that.”
“Lots of jobs.”
