No Clout Chasers, No Mooches — Just a Seat at the Fire

Steve’s place. Early. The rest of the crew hadn’t rolled in yet.

Tom and Steve were already at the bottom of the bar, staring at a lineup that could ruin a Saturday: William Larue Weller, Jack Daniel’s 14, Eagle Rare 12, Rare Character, Short Barrel, Thomas Handy, a couple of Pingrees — bottles getting pulled like the night already had opinions.

Tom had brought Short Barrel Double Oak and a Knob Creek store pick. Steve was eyeing a little 1976 Wild Turkey — something light, eighty-proof-ish — just to get the palate ready. Old Carter was always nice. Pingree out of Michigan was calling his name.

But this wasn’t going to be a bottle-score night first.

We’re talking about the website tonight, too.

They were talking about who they are. Why this fire pit works. Why most people who sit around it never get invited back. And why, if you don’t have a community yet, bourbon might be the thing that finds you one.

Bourbon Was Never Meant to Sit Pretty

Steve likes to say it plain:

We like to say you drink it and have a good time and laugh and then piss it out.

That’s the mantra. Bourbon is meant to be opened, enjoyed, and shared — never hoarded like an investment portfolio. The sad photos tell the other story: a guy drinking alone, or a bar packed with banger bottles and not a single one cracked.

Steve sees it all the time.

You see a bar that’s full of bottles, and they look like some banger bottles, but none of them open.

That’s not this group.

Sean and Steve started stumbling around this thing years ago. Then PJ. Then Dan. The entry fee wasn’t a unicorn hunt — it was showing up with something, anything, that said you understood the assignment.

Steve still laughs about the night he walked over with Blanton’s after Helene — neighborhood party, big wood pile, people he barely knew.

What’s the one bottle you can bring? If you were going to bring one bottle to some place that you know nobody, what bottle is it?

Blanton’s. Everybody knows it. Is it the greatest bottle in the world? No.

For my purposes, I think it’s the most amazing bottle in the world because I’ve met some amazing friends over it.

That’s the point people miss while they’re chasing foil.

What Doesn’t Fly at Our Bars

They’ve had a good number of people through Steve’s fire pit over the years. Most don’t stick. Some call that exclusive. Steve and Tom call it preserving the environment.

If you’ve never looked at the Law of the Fire Pit, this night was the long version — told the way it gets told when the pours are still early and the chairs are still empty.

The Clout Chaser

Tom knows the type. The guy who names the bottle everybody’s son is looking for, tastes it once, then runs out to brag.

It’s finding that most expensive bottle that you have on the shelf and saying, hey, I was at…

When Tom hosts, he’ll pull the fun stuff — the bottles that aren’t just Buffalo Trace or Wild Turkey wallpaper — and he’ll also pull the Taylor, the Blanton’s, the chase bottles. Then he watches.

I am kind of observing what bottle they’re grabbing for and what they’re listening to.

Because it’s not really about the bourbon.

It’s the moments you have in there… Not showing off what we’re drinking.

The Mooch

The Mooch rides shotgun with the Clout Chaser.

You get the picture of their banger bottle. Then they come drink yours two nights later — and that bottle never shows its face. They want Handy 2024 or 2025. They bring something they don’t mind parting with.

Tom put it clean:

It doesn’t have to be something to one-up what you drank at my house… But if it’s special to you or you’re keeping it for some reason, that’s obviously something we’re sharing.

Steve didn’t soften it.

They want to drink your banger bottles, but they don’t want to bring anything.

The Flipper

These are the ones Steve can’t stand — and he says that while respecting a hustle.

I’m all about the side hustle, man… I really do respect that.

What’s not respected: walking into somebody’s bar and pricing it.

Man, I can’t believe you opened that. Do you know how much money you could get for that right now?

Tom’s seen the phones come out, thumbs scrolling secondary markets mid-pour.

Steve’s line lands hard:

But you and I aren’t the same people at that point.

Tom doesn’t flip. He’s the nine-to-five guy with one hunting day a week while liquor stores are closed Sundays and Saturdays feel like a stampede. Without friends who share, he’d still be chasing his tail for something as simple as a Russell’s Reserve.

That’s what the Flipper steals — not just bottles. Access. Time. The chance for regular people to taste what they hunt for.

The Asshole

Steve says the Asshole is kind of all of them combined — clout, flip, take, never give back.

He’s handed people bottles. Heaven Hill 22. “That’s your bottle. Who cares? Bring me something good back — or hell, pick me up something you think I need to have.”

It’s bitten him four or five times.

The opposite stories are why the fire still burns.

When a tree fell over the fire pit, the texts came in: we can be there Saturday to help clean up. Power outages. Same thing. What do you need?

First pour of a night — glass barely filled — Steve’s wife called. She’d wrecked her car.

There was no questions asked… One of the dudes grabbed his keys and said, I’ll drive, let’s go.

That’s the Law from the other side. Be a cool dude. Show up.

The Stories Behind the Bottles

This night wasn’t short on proof that sharing builds the group.

Steve told Tom about Sean and the last of a Parker’s Heritage — handed over with a simple ask: bring me a badass bottle back. Weeks later, at their first big bourbon event, Sean walked in with a 1976 Wild Turkey. Steve’s birth year. Sealed up for a birthday pour.

At that point it’s like, are you shitting me?

That rabbit trail never really ended. Seventies to mid-eighties Wild Turkey became a permanent presence on Steve’s bar — not because of secondary price tags, but because of what those bottles did to friendships.

There’s the 1979 Jack Daniel’s from an abandoned building headed for demolition — cracked open the first time Tom came over with PJ. Tom took it home. That’s how you meet people in this crew: you open the thing worth opening.

And then there’s the line from the documentary Neat that stuck with Tom. Freddie from Buffalo Trace received a 20-year Pappy for twenty years of work. He poured it with his brother and his dad, then tried to put the bottle back on the shelf.

His dad stopped him.

We are the fragile parts.

They finished the bottle. Later that year, Freddie’s brother and father both passed. That was the lesson that landed with Tom — the bottle will sit there either way.

If I’m not drinking it with my friends, then… it’s just gonna sit there.

Steve had some of the best times of his life with his dad sitting up at that bar. That’s the scoreboard that matters.

The Entry Ticket

Strip the four exclusions down and Steve’s summary is almost too simple:

It’s just kind of be a cool dude, really, when it comes down to it.

If you understand good times, know how to talk trash, can tell a story, and love to laugh your ass off with friends — you will always have a seat at this fire.

Steve’s found that pattern in every city he’s lived. It takes a while to get the right four or five guys. Then you vacation together. Wives know each other. Lifelong friends. Surround your bourbon group with that — not foil, not flips, not sealed museums.

If you already have a community? Fantastic. Share it.

If you don’t?

Let’s find you a community somewhere. There’s a community everywhere. You just got to find… Bourbon brings you together.

The rest of the dudes were due in a few minutes. Pours needed to slow down. The fire still needed lighting.

But the Law was already on the table — the same Law that keeps this circle worth pouring for.

Cheers, folks.