I love time travel and whiskey takes me to a train heading east into the Canadian Rockies.

There we were, just me and grampa seated in the dining car complete with starched white linens, China, candlelight, and a server dressed in crisp white shirt, red bow tie, sharply creased black slacks, shiny black shoes and a perfectly folded white cloth draped over his arm. Grampa was a railroad man, that's how he'd made his living. Of course, these two men had never met, but grampa said something about the Porters Union and that set the stage.

All evening, these two men treated each other like royalty. My grampa was an authoritarian and seeing him with a man he considered his equal, was like meeting a different man. “You get what you give” grampa said, and that night I finally saw how good men give and receive respect.

Grampa clarified the law, the two men discussed the choices, and soon enough, my first legal drink arrived. Jack Daniels straight. Before dinner was over, I would be hooked and hammered.

Grampa and the server called him Nearest, which baffled me, until the server explained that Nearest was his nickname. His real name was Nathan Green. In the world of whiskey, Nathan Green was a giant. Nearest taught Jack Daniel’s how to make his whiskey. You mean Jack Daniels put his name on Nathan Green’s whiskey I exclaimed? Yes, they agreed, that is what happened.

Over the years I forgot Nathan Green’s name, but I never forgot he invented Jack Daniels whiskey, or the men who remembered.