The door swung open again, and the teasing died instantly, all of us focusing on the task at hand as my brother led a group of tourists inside.
“Alright, remember now, this is another area where no pictures are allowed. Please put your phones away until we venture back outside. Since we’re one of the last breweries that still makes its own barrels, we don’t want our secrets getting out. We know at least half of you were sent from Kentucky down here to spy on us.”
The group laughed softly, all of their eyes wide as they filtered in to get a better look at us. Marty hated tours, and I could already hear his grunts of disapproval, like the group was sent with the sole purpose of ruining his day. But me? I loved them, not only because it meant Scooter Whiskey was still a household name, and therefore — job security — but also because it meant a chance to rag on my little brother.
I had three brothers — Logan, Michael, and Jordan.
Jordan was the oldest — my senior by four years. Mom and Dad had adopted him before I was born, and though he might not have looked like the rest of the Becker clan, he was one of us, through and through.
Michael was the youngest of us at just seventeen, only one summer standing between him and his senior year of high school.
And Logan, who just walked through the door with the tour, was the second youngest. He was two years younger than me, which meant he was my favorite to pick on.
He was my first little brother, after all.
Once the entire group was inside, Logan gestured to us with a wide smile.
“These are the fine gentleman known as our barrel raisers. You might remember learning about them from the video earlier. As it mentioned, each of our barrels is crafted by hand, by just four upstanding gentlemen — Marty, Eli, Noah, and PJ.”
We all waved as Logan introduced us, and I chanced a smirk in the direction of the hottest girl in the tour. She was older, maybe mid-thirties, and looked like someone’s mom. But her tits were as perky as I imagined they were on her twenty-first birthday, and she was looking at me like a hot piece of bread after a month of being on a no-carb diet.
She returned my smile as she twirled a strand of her bright blonde hair around her finger, whispering something to the group of girls she was with before they all giggled.
Logan continued on, talking about how the four of us as a team made more than five-hundred barrels every single day before sending them down the line for charring and toasting. He explained how Scooter Whiskey is actually clear when it’s first put into our barrels, and it’s the oak and charring process that brings out the amber color and sweet flavor they’re accustomed to today.
Even though my hands worked along on autopilot, I watched my brother with a balloon of pride swelling in my chest. His hair was a sandy walnut brown, just like mine, though his curled over the edges of his ball cap and mine was cut short in a fade. He stood a few inches taller than me, which always irked me growing up, and he was lean from years of playing baseball where I was stout from years of football before I became a barrel raiser.
If you grew up as a boy in Stratford, you played at least one sport. That’s just all there was to it.
Though we had our differences, anyone who stood in the same room with us could point us out as brothers. Logan was like my best friend, but he was also like my own son. At least, that’s how I’d seen it after Dad died.
Just like there were only a handful of barrel raisers, the same was true for tour guides. They were the face of our distillery, and on top of being paid well for their knowledge and charisma, they were also tipped highly by the tourists passing through town. It was one of the most sought-after jobs, and Logan had landed it at eighteen — after Dad died, which meant he didn’t get any help getting the position.
He got the job because he was the best at it, and so I was proud of him, the same way I knew our dad would have been.
It was no surprise to our family when he landed it, given his rapt attention to detail. He’d been that way since we were kids — nothing in his room was ever out of place, he ate his food in a specific order, and he always did his homework as soon as he was out of school, exactly as it was supposed to be done, and then did his chores before he even considered playing outside.
For Logan to be comfortable, everything needed to be in order.
The poor guy had almost made it through his entire spiel when I kicked the barrel I was working on and dropped the metal ring to the floor, creating a loud commotion.
“Ah! My finger!”
I gripped my right middle finger hard, grimacing in pain as the rest of the crew flew to my side. The tourists gasped in horror, watching helplessly as I grunted and cursed, applying pressure.
“What happened?”
“Is he okay?”
“Oh God, if there’s blood, I’ll pass out.”
I had to strain against the urge to laugh at that last one, which I was almost positive came from the hot mom with the great rack.
Logan sprinted over, his face pale as he shoved PJ out of the way to get to me.
“Shit, Noah. What’d you do? Are you okay?” He thwacked PJ’s shoulder. “Go
