Kyle Jarrard

This bridge to nowhere is dedicated to those with a passion for Cognac, books, travel, making fun of the French, watching America from abroad, and hiking borderlands. All other subjects will be met with similar ruthlessness and derision.

"Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes
"Hunger" by Knut Hamsun
"Wolf Hall" by Hillary Mantel
"Agincourt" by Juliet Barker
"Adan en Eden" by Carlos Fuentes
"A Brief Life" by Juan Carlos Onetti
"The Shadow Factory" by James Bamford
"Circling the Sacred Mountain" by Robert Thurman and Tad Wise

"Garden of Demise" is my latest stab at poetry -- some wouldn't even call it that, to be polite -- which tries to get "out there" about France and offer a different view, a sort of "other side" to the place. The collection, at the link below, is set up so you can click through the pages just like a book (making it all realer than real?). So, enjoy, and/or load me up with invective after you've read. What is poetry but a calling out in the dark? Are you out there with me?

I wrote "Cognac: The Seductive Saga of the World's Most Coveted Spirit" because no one had ever put together a readable, independent history of this marvelous spirit. My connections to Cognac country inspired me to dig deep into an incredible story that ranges from an exploration of the ancient bedrock, to the long and tortured development of wine growing in this region of southwest France, to the phylloxera epidemic that nearly wiped out the industry, to the fantastic machinery of modern, foreign-owned Cognac giants spreading their eau-de-vie all around the world. Frank Prial, former wine critic for The New York Times, called "Cognac" an "enthralling volume ... a compelling story, not just about the world's best known eau-de-vie, but about the people who make it and the often violent history of the remarkable but little-known region of France from which it comes."

"Cognac, la saga d'un esprit" est la captivante histoire du cognac qui retrace le développement de la viticulture dans la région depuis le temps des Romains, puis l'avènement de l’eau-de-vie au XVIe siècle, l’expansion de la distillation au cours des années 1600, ainsi que l’âge d’or du cognac au milieu du XIXe siècle. Tout au long du chemin, Kyle Jarrard révèle comment les distillateurs charentais ont surmonté l’agonie du vignoble après la crise du phylloxéra, il dévoile les facettes parfois curieuses de l’occupation allemande et parcourt tous les défis qui ont secoué la région de production, en particulier celui de l’excellente forme de l’après-guerre quand le marché s’est étendu aux quatre coins du monde.