Carrie
There are no umbrellas at a bourbon funeral. Not at my father’s, anyway, not for the Stillwaters. We honor our dead with the full brunt of Kentucky’s wrath, raw and unfiltered—flooded clay mud, rain thick as molasses, the February wind slicing straight through Armani and off-the-rack polyester alike. Some grieve in silence, some in spectacle, but all of us endure, because anything less would shame the legacy.
I’d dressed the part: black sheath dress, no jewelry except for Daddy’s battered gold watch tight on my wrist, and boots instead of heels because the family plot was halfway up a limestone hill with no paved path. The dress clung, slick with rain and everything underneath it, but I didn’t let it show. Not the cold, not the weight, not the fact that I hadn’t eaten in two days and felt hollowed out and brittle, like the barrels after their final drain.
They’d set the casket up on a platform to keep it above the runoff, but the fresh mound underneath was already turningto sludge. Daddy would’ve called it “good river silt, best for sorghum,” and laughed at the lot of us for standing out here getting soaked. The mahogany gleamed, beads of water rolling like sweat down its sides. I imagined he’d have liked that too: even dead, making the expensive things work for him.
A bottle of Stillwater 25-year sat perched on the casket’s corner, label gleaming through the rain, wax seal unbroken. It was the last bottle pulled from the Old Rickhouse before it burned. Family tradition said you opened it after the service, but that wasn’t happening. Not with the Board and half the bourbon royalty watching from under their designer hats and gloved hands, some shivering, some with faces already flush from the heated car bars they’d parked along the lane.
I stepped up, felt the mud clutch at my boots, and left streaks of silt across the polished wood as I steadied myself. I pressed my palm flat to the coffin and closed my eyes, letting the cold and the water and the moment sink bone-deep. For a heartbeat, I thought the wood felt warm beneath my hand, as if the decades of bourbon soaked into it were still working their way out.
I took the bottle, broke the wax seal with the edge of my house key. Poured three fingers into a waiting glass and set it next to the lilies. “May you never drink alone, old man,” I said, quiet enough that only the closest could hear.
A hush rippled through the crowd. All eyes on me, measuring—can the Bourbon Princess hold it together? Will she run the business into the ground? Is she about to cry, scream, or faint? I met their stares, one by one. The old families from Frankfort and Bardstown, the syndicate sharks from Louisville, the New Money consultants brought in by the Board to “future-proof” Stillwater. Even a few retired hands from the bottling line, standing proud at the back, collars up against the rain.
No one saw me flinch. Not when the preacher droned on about legacies, or when the first shovelful of mud hit the wood with athud like a gunshot. Not when the wind slapped hair across my mouth, and I tasted copper and salt. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
They say in Kentucky that the moment you bury a Stillwater, every rival in three counties starts plotting how to drink you dry. Today, I could feel their hunger, circling. It sat on my shoulders, an old familiar pressure that had nothing to do with love or family, and everything to do with inheritance.
I let my hand linger on the casket, fingers splayed like I could will myself through the lacquer and veneer and grip my father’s callused hand one last time. The rain smoothed away my touch before I pulled back.
Behind me, the industry began to move, as if one collective thought had passed through their ranks. The first to step forward was Marcus Ellery, not a tear in sight, just that predatory half-smile he’d worn since the 90s. He offered condolences with the practiced sorrow of a man who’d rehearsed the phrase on his morning drive.
“Ms. Stillwater. Carrie. Your father was—” His eyes flicked to the casket, calculating. “A titan. We’re all diminished by his passing.”
I gave him nothing. “Thank you, Marcus.” My voice, I was glad to hear, came out steady and edged in gravel.
Others queued behind him. The condolences blurred: “He’ll be missed,” “He was a legend,” “If you need anything, you know where to find us.” Lies, all of it, but I played along. It’s what Daddy taught me—bourbon is theater, and you perform even when no one’s buying tickets.
Only Bennet Shore, Daddy’s head distiller since before I was born, came to me with something like genuine grief. His suit hung loose on his stooped frame, rain pooling in the creases of his face. He didn’t speak, just gripped my arm with hands that smelled of charred oak and stale tobacco. I squeezed back,hard, the way he’d shown me when I was little, as if a proper handshake could solve the world’s problems.
He nodded toward the bottle on the coffin. “He’d want you to have the first pour, Carrie.”
“I did.” My mouth felt scorched, but I didn’t let the tears through. “It’s… different. Spicier, like the ‘47 batch.”
Bennet managed a smile. “You always had the best palate. I heard about the Board. They’re circling.”
“So I noticed.”
He gave my arm one last squeeze. “Don’t let them take it. Not after all this.”
I nodded, but didn’t trust myself to speak.
As the crowd began to break apart, I hung back, not ready to return to the house and the wake and the next round of careful social slaughter. Rain ran down my bare arms, cold enough now that I shivered. My boots had sunk almost to the ankle; I pulled them free, one at a time, wincing as mud spatters ruined the hem of my dress. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except that I was alone now, and everything Daddy had built—every barrel, every secret recipe, every last drop of history—was mine to defend.
The wind eased for a moment. I knelt at the grave, set the empty glass on the stone, and let myself, finally, breathe.
“I won’t let them win,” I said. The words steamed in the air, lost almost instantly to the wet.
I stood and turned my back to the plot, steeling myself for the onslaught ahead. Behind me, the ground settled in a silent promise.
No one buried a Stillwater without a fight. Not in this family. Not on my watch.
Stillwater Mansion was never meant to be subtle. The front doors stood taller than most men, blackened oak studded with iron bands rescued from collapsed rickhouses. Inside, it was a museum of bourbon feudalism: every wall a shrine to barrels, labels, copper stills, the carpeted hush over hardwood floors broken only by the clink of crystal tumblers and the muffled step of those with enough money or ambition to pass the threshold.
The wake sprawled through the lower level, the air humid with wet coats, perfume, and the musk of aging spirits from the living room’s centerpiece—a six-cask tasting rack, each barrel custom engraved with a year that meant something to the family. The usual faces orbited the setup, tasting, arguing, pretending not to stare at me as I crossed the floor. I could map the room by memory. The Louisville syndicate in the library, all faux-mourning and silver flasks tucked into bespoke vests; the Board’s younger wolves in the east parlor, circling Duncan Vale, who poured neat shots while calculating percentages in his head; a smattering of local press, corralled near the foyer and forbidden from recording but already scribbling storylines.
Everywhere I went, people called me “Carrie” with a familiarity that ignored the decade I spent dodging these events. They offered condolences heavy as lead shot—some genuine, most transactional. I kept my hands clasped at my waist, nails digging the soft meat of my palm every time someone referenced“legacy” or “burden” or, in one case, “your next move.” No one asked if I was okay. That wasn’t the game.
