So I get notifications in my email form Informed Delivery telling me when I’m getting mail or packages so I knew today was going to be a day I get to see an elephant from Whiskey Del Bac and was surprised to see the mailman today carrying an oversized envelope that was too big for Informed Delivery to scan and send. It was a letter from Hammer Spring that contained a letter and an elephant while the other was just stickers, so that went on the Whiskey Del Bac burner (probably the best dad joke you’ll read today).
This is going to be probably long so I’ll post the elephant first and if you want to read you can
First off there was a letter that actually was really good in blue ink that looked like from a pen that was probably more flow than the paper was good for (probably a gel pen of some sort, looked like .5 or finer and most likely 20# bond recycled office paper). It was super thoughtful and I may as well just put that in here so I can read it and do some stream of consciousness that makes it look more high effort.
Looks like something about elephant poaching and JP likes the elephant in snek drawing but didn’t elect to do that and did something a little more 2019. Oh I forgot to mention that I did an entire three paragraphs that was much better written but forgot to save the draft and closed the page when grabbing a link. It was totally embarrassing but by typing that I sort of remembered. Score!
I wrote about 70 distillers asking for an elephant, this is the first
So maybe two weeks or three weeks ago I sent out a ton of letters to distillers. I think I did a batch of around 30 and then did another batch of maybe 26 the week after that. It was a whole lot of them and every distiller I could find in California, Texas, Utah, Arizona, and a few in South Dakota (didn’t write them in that order, just wanted to make it alphabetical for the list). Like usual my letters are almost alway one page on some paper that is not fairly impressive called Office Depot Stellar (remind me to put an Amazon link in there to get paid). The paper has 30 lines and 10 are ate up by formalities so it’s 20 lines to ask for an elephant and wish a nice day or whatever you can do to suck up and endear yourself into getting an elephant, which in my case usually is endearing by skipping any personal stories or thought-provoking content beyond why in the hell someone is asking for an elephant in the first place.
Which brings me to what should be in the FAQ while the last paragraph should be in a blog
I don’t spend more than 10 minutes on 90% of the letters I send and I fully expect my replies back to not be high effort. It’s delightful when they are, but not expected. This one would be a case of not huge time obviously like the one from Dogfish Head that I still haven’t written an article for. The back of the elephant was more effort than I would expect anyone to put into it.
So I don’t really expect anyone to put in nearly the effort that is into this one or many of the others and it is great when they do, and in the case of Hammer Spring I get the impression that JP probably has some skill or maybe being the president of a booze company and a bit more business acumen that afforded him the ability to take some art classes just in case someone writes and asks you to draw them an elephant. Never know.
So I calls this guy and he actually was the person that answered the phone and was ridiculously nice
As I sain the FAQ section of my Night Shift Brewing elephant article I usually give a phone call after I get the elephant and dispense with the formality of writing another letter (and 55¢ is money so that’s probably more the reason). I got the letter a couple of hours ago so that would be right in the time I like to call a brewery or distillery (a bit before noon). Called this guy up and sure as can be the elephant drawer answered and was absurdly nice of a person. It reminded me when I was getting ready to type this that Kuma’s Corner was a spot I never called and just got off the phone with them. Holy shit they were nice and the lady when she inevitably had to cut me off said she had already blown off two customers. That’s a great sense of priorities and even if she wasn’t being totally honest about that I’m going to take her at her word. JP was super nice and had to attend to a customer, but I’m not going to give him any points off just because he was ridiculously good with all of the other aspects of the being thanked for the elephant drawing.
11/10 Would write again
This was pretty much the whole package when I speak of what I would call an ideal elephant reply. Note, stickers, coaster, and an elephant of mediumish high effort. I think I got a color copy of the elephant honestly so that may be cause to dock points later. I don’t think I’ve posted some of the elephants I’ve got that were actually done on Post-It notes, then photocopied in color but that is a rant I’ll spare you with and hope you put your hand on your head a little without the long ramble. I think he may have done this on a tablet like a Microsoft Surface. Going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Nice guy.