Remember the Pappy Heist of 2013? Over 70 cases were stolen from the warehouse while it was under lock and key. Pat Melton, the Sherriff of Franklin County, has come right out and said it was an inside job. However, while they have interviewed all the employees at Buffalo Trace, the case remains unsolved.
There has been a lot of speculation as to who did it, and even a local high school principal was implicated in the crime at first. A reward of $10,000 has been put up by an anonymous donor who “cares about bourbon very much” according to Melton, but when compared with the street value of 65 cases of 20 year old Pappy and 9 cases of Van Winkle Rye, the motivation just isn’t there.
You might be surprised to know that people are still talking about it. A few months ago Tom Fischer of Bourbon Blog did his own investigation into the matter, only to turn up empty handed. It wasn’t a total loss, though, as he came up with the idea to host a bourbon tasting called “Five Whiskeys Worth Stealing” which included hard to find non-Pappy bourbons. “While I certainly don’t encourage theft, there are so many great bourbons available in Kentucky it may seem as though we’re getting away with a crime,” Fischer said of his project.
Noah Adams of NPR recently revisited this story once again, traveling throughout Kentucky conducting interviews about the heist. Revealed in his interview is news that there are currently two promising leads in the case. You can listen to that story here.
Will the missing Pappy Van Winkle ever be recovered? It may already be gone.
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