Quick recap: Last month, the Buffalo Trace distillery reported that $26,000 worth of high-end, high-demand Pappy Van Winkle bourbon had gone missing from its warehouse. While some of us responded to this news by making lots of Thomas Crown Affair jokes and tinkering with a screenplay titled Bourbon Heist: The Search For The Right Proof, Kentucky officials opened up an investigation and started zeroing in on suspects. They’ve already cleared one, a high school principal who was acting suspiciously in a liquor store a few days after the theft, and are now focusing on Buffalo Trace employees, to see if the whole thing was an inside job.
From Louisville’s WDRB:
“We’re still looking at the big picture. Obviously everything points to that. As the investigation continues it would lead one to believe that someone inside did have something to do with it,” says Sheriff Melton.
[The sheriff] says they’re getting closer to solving the crime.
He has a message for whoever is responsible.
“The net is closing. It’s getting tighter. It’s hot. You’re not going to be able to take it and sell it anywhere,” says Sheriff Melton.
What a great quote. The net is closing. And getting tighter. And getting hot. Does that mean the net on fire? What if it burns up and the guilty party slips away into the night with nothing but mild burns? I’m sure it looked incredibly cool to throw a giant flaming net around, but you really need to think these things through, Sheriff Melton.
But anyway, the important thing here is that if I’m a member of Kentucky law enforcement, and I’m investigating a massive high-end bourbon heist, I can think of at least one Harlan County bar owner I might want to bring in for questioning.
