Natural born swiller
Hunter S. Thompson’s Wild Turkey intake is legendary: and ‘wild’ is definitely the word
In 1970, the now defunct Scanlonâs Monthly sent a young journalist named Hunter S. Thompson to his hometown of Louisville to do a piece on
Americaâs premier horse race, the Kentucky Derby. Thompson wasnât the icon he is today. Although he had published his first book on the Hellâs Angels in 1966, he was still a vagrant hack in the process of inventing himself as Americaâs leading provocateur-freak. And his visit to Louisville, as recounted in the essay The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, begins with a brilliant act of provocation.
In the air-conditioned lounge I met a man from Houston who said his name was something or other â âbut just call me Jimboâ â and he was
here to get it on. âIâm ready for anything by God! Anything at all. Yeah, what are you drinking?â I ordered a Margarita with ice â¦
Picture the scene: Thompson, decked out in a fedora, a wide-collared shirt and sunglasses to hide his dilated pupils, smoking a Marlboro through a cigarette holder and ordering a tequila in the middle of bourbon country. As he himself later remarked, he was lucky to get out alive.
In a nod to the local mores, Thompson compromises on a double Old Fitz with ice and listens, as Jimbo explained what he has gotten himself into.
âLook ⦠I know this Derby crowd, I come here every year, and let me tell you one thing Iâve learned â this is no town to be giving people the
impression youâre some kind of faggot. Not in public, anyway. Shit, theyâll .....
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By Hunter S. Thompson's
Section : Whisky Literature
Page number : 47
