What do  you taste in that he would ask

            My daughter blames my father,
            for everything she learned in preschool–
            when he was her babysitter–
            about bourbon
            and the world.

            He had suffered a stroke at age 61
            after he retired to fish for the rest of his life.
            He was her teacher from his lift chair
            where he kept his bottle of sipping whiskey
            down and out of sight.

            He would take out his bottle and take a sip.
            Then he would have her take a sip.
            Then he would ask her to spit it out
            and tell him what she tasted.
            She got better each year.

            When she left home to work with
            Wolfgang Puck in his Chicago restaurant,
             She leaned how a chef cooked.
             When Wolfie, as she called him divorced,
              his wife took him for half of his restaurants.

               My daughter went to New York
                to enter a contest, judging spirits.
                Of the also 900 entrants,
                she won the contest
                and the grand prize, a trip.

                She was sent to Australia to visit
                vineyards there, all expenses paid.
                She came back to the USA
                and got certified to judge spirits.
                She designs bar and stocks them by tastes.

                She became the only woman to judge bourbon.
                She mixes age barrels of bourbon and mixes tequila.
                She still blames my father for all her successes.
                She takes his skill with her
                All over the world.