BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.
The legalized liquor business is the tragedy of our civilization. Alcohol is the greatest and most blighting curse of our modern civilization. The liquor seller is simply and only a privileged malefactor - a criminal.
Our relationship with alcohol is a hologram for how human beings relate to the natural world. When you get to that level of brown liquor - an age distillate of a fermented thing, grain that we learned how to plant and make grow - it is in some ways the best expression of what humans are able to do. Nobody else can make that! And it's delicious.