Still Waiting on Those Diplomatic Plates

This April marks my two year anniversary as a Marker's Mark Ambassador. Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, Maker's Mark, as in the whiskey. Don't pretend that you're surprised; I like to think that I'm on everyone's short list for likely candidates to represent the political interests of smooth, fine, and delicious Kentucky bourbon whiskey. Did I forget to mention it is also hand crafted? They actually make the whiskey out of human hands. Yeah, I couldn't believe that shit, either. Does it still count if said severed hands are clutching barley and wheat as they're hucked in the vat? I'll have to take this up with my dark masters in Kentucky.

The funny thing--apart from the fact that I'm an ambassador for an alcoholic beverage--is that I have no idea how I came to receive this auspicious post. None whatsoever. About a year and a half ago when I mysteriously received a box of plastic cocktail straws and napkins from Marker's Mark, I just assumed it was some randomized promotion. Perhaps my regimen of persistent liver abuse had caught the eye of some Uncle Jesse-esque (Dukes of Hazzard Jesse, not that delicious manwich from Full House) hick in the moonshine business. But as the gifts got increasingly noteworthy, I realized I had somehow been inducted into a secret cabal, one whose firm grasp on power I could manipulate for my own ends. And while the term "secret cabal" isn't always seen in the most favorable of lights, let me assure you that we're dealing with some classy gentlemen here. First of all, they make Maker's Mark bourbon whiskey, which is easily the finest bourbon whiskey to be made on this planet or any planet for all time. And did I mention it was hand crafted? And smooth? Yeah, that too. More importantly, though, said cabal started sending me devices so clearly anachronistic that my fingers twitched spasmodically at the thought of implementing them in this, our age of futuristic plastic polymers and interwebs. For instance, some months back I was sent a stick of sealing wax and a Maker's Mark seal, so that I can seal envelopes closed with my new lords' mark as kings of yore did:



Clearly, the ascot-wearing sophisticates at the Maker's Mark compound know their ambassadors' twisted predilections intimately, as I understood the seal and wax as not a gimmick but an actual tool to be implemented immediately. So fervent was this belief that I used a photocopy of a 1608 letter to Nathaniel Bacon, folded in the fashion of Renaissance correspondence, upon which to test this gift (I'm not kidding; that's a photocopy from the Huntington of a 400 year old manuscript). Behold the glorious results, and in so doing transport yourself to a gilded age of chivalry and savage venereal disease:

Much like a foreign prince lavishes gifts upon his heart's desire, so too did Maker's Mark continue to heap bounty upon me. The final nail in my bourbon-soaked (and thus even more flammable) coffin was the delivery of official Maker's Mark business cards, complete with my name, Ambassador number, and the serial number of my own cask.

Yes, my own cask. Squirreled away under the bluegrass hills of Kentucky, much like the hobbit holes of the Shire, squats a white oak barrel filled with delicious, smooth Maker's Mark bourbon whiskey with my name on it. Literally. Indeed, I almost like to think of it as my child, if you could split open your baby and fine whiskey would pour out. Of course, were that the case, we Irish probably would have died out a long time ago in feats of Swiftian barbarism. Ah, but we'd have died pissed out of our tree and happy.

And in the end, that's why I'm so proud to be a Maker's Mark ambassador, despite the fact that, in all honesty, I have no idea how I came to be one. I've polled the usual suspects and have been met with only confused, blank stares, as if a penis had started to grow from my forehead and staring at it was the only way to uncover the sacred mystery of its beginnings. Ironically, I've come to believe I was hammered drunk one night on the internet and signed myself up for it. I can't be sure, as the brain cells responsible perished in a chemical fire of sorts that very night. Nevertheless, I feel this sordid truth actually makes me qualified for the position. So while I continue to spread the good word about the smooth, sophisticated, almost white-oaky taste of Maker's Mark bourbon whiskey, sit back and enjoy a glass of delicious, fine, brownish Maker's Mark Kentucky bourbon whiskey. I'll be out killing a hobo to see if this office comes with diplomatic immunity.