Fortunately, business with Jefferson’s Bourbon is good, so I don’t have to crash in someone’s apartment when I travel today. Now, most of my business trips involve new launches, visiting distributors to make sure everything is going well, and meeting with various top chefs to educate them about our bourbon.
I like flying, and I always have. But when I was younger I used to be able to fall asleep on the planes. Nothing ever bothered me. A few years ago, I had a really horrific flight, with a lot of turbulence and just general misery. I’m not going to lie. I got a little nervous, and my feelings about flying went from being really blasé to being really concerned. That feeling stayed with me for about six months. I’m pretty much over it now, but occasionally, I still get nervous.
Typically, I don’t shy away from conversation, but on a plane I don’t want to be bothered. I just hunker down with a magazine, and don’t do anything that will invite conversation.
When you’re in the liquor business, your seatmate will automatically start talking about bad experiences with liquor back in college. I mean, I’m the guy who travels with samples and have had liquor bottles explode in my luggage, saturating absolutely everything. That puts a damper, no pun intended, on a business trip.
But there have been some random times that I’ve started talking to a seatmate, and it’s been pretty interesting. I got a seatmate interested in investing in another venture of mine, and another time I actually made a friend.
On a flight out of Louisville, I wound up sitting next to a U.P.S. pilot, who had flown for more than 30 years. He was retiring and had some mixed emotions about it. He was happy to explore new things, but was very sentimental about leaving his job. We talked about life and what it meant to work, and what the future may bring. After retirement, he came to a number of our bourbon tastings, and to this day, we keep in touch.
I guess it does pay to talk to seatmates some times, but then there are those times that you wish you had just read your magazine and kept quiet.
I was flying from Dallas to Phoenix, and I was seated next to this really nice-looking young woman. She started talking and, really, who am I not to talk back? As conversations do, ours turned to work. I told her what I do, and then she told me what she did. I thought maybe she was in marketing. But no. She was a professional escort, which I suppose is marketing in one sense.
She then proceeded to tell me that she went to Dallas to be the trophy date for the keynote speaker at a convention. I was fascinated. It was like being in a movie. It was the weirdest and most hilarious conversation I ever had with someone. She said she worked only by referral, but if I needed a date, she would make an exception for me. I suppose that was flattering in some very strange way, but kind of creepy all the same.
By Trey Zoeller, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.
By Trey Zoeller, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.com.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/business/a-bourbon-mans-strange-encounters.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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