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COVER STORY Kenny Chesney's Island Experience in a Bottle In an exclusive interview, Kenny Chesney spoke with us about Blue Chair Bay Rum and the island life. How does Blue Chair Bay Rum connect to your passion for music? It took me—even knowing I wanted to sing and write songs—a long time to find that thing that was truly who I am. I think passion pushes you to seek that place that's truly your own, and it fires you up. Blue Chair Bay Rum is the same kind of thing. You savor every moment of the journey, then when you get there, you savor it twice, because it is the culmination of all that work and all that passion. I get to be in that perfect moment any time I get onstage, or write a song or make a record. Now it's the same thing when I pour myself a glass of this rum. How did you come upon the idea of bottling the island experience? The more you leave, the more you take the places you love with you in your heart. If you didn't, you'd lose your roots. The islands are the place where I'm most at peace, where my soul is calm and my mind unwinds. Blue Chair Bay Rum is like putting some of that in a bottle—not just the way the sun moves across the sky or the tide comes in, laughing with friends after a long day out at sea, but just that feeling that everything's good. It's the liquid equivalent of the way the islands are the antidote to civilization. And on those nights when you're going to be a pirate, well, it's pretty good for that, too. Please share your favorite Blue Chair Bay Rum cocktails. Our mixologist, Jonathan Pogash, is creating some very exciting stuff. I'll just say: People are maybe going to think about rum in a few different ways. And for anyone jamming to "Pirate Flag, the first single from Life On A " Rock, which is all about rebelling against anything mundane in your world, we are going to create a Shooting Star. That's the drink in the bridge of that song, and with any luck, it's going to be ready to serve at the No Shoes Nation tour stops this summer. Your fans are fiercely loyal. In creating Blue Chair Bay Rum, is this a way to share a slice of island life and further connect with them? I think anyone who knows me knows how much I love my fans. I created the rum I'd always wanted and couldn't find. It's what I love and what I wanted to drink. And after all that went into this, who else would I want to share it with? It's the essence of the laidback vibe I get in the islands, or I can find early in the afternoons at one of our No Shoes Nation tailgates. Just cool people, not worrying about where they have to go or what happens next: grilling out, enjoying their friends, listening to music and letting the day happen. What's your favorite way to drink Blue Chair Bay Rum? I'll say for the purists, we worked really hard on getting the white rum to be something that stands up on its own. Just a couple ice cubes and you can drink it. So for the old school classicists, there's a Hemingway Daiquiri that's not just the original, but the cocktail one of my very favorite writers used to drink. 62 / the tasting panel / april 2013 On location: Kenny Chesney's new Blue Chair Bay Rum ready for action at Honky Tonk Central in Nashville. "It is a spirit consumed in fun places, by people having fun and gathering, and with Kenny Chesney's name and fan base, it could grow very quickly." Booth was an integral part of a team that Chesney says thinks like he does. Rather than focus on what wouldn't work, they focused on how they could make it happen. "When I told them this was something I'd been wanting to do," says Chesney, "they didn't tell me I was crazy; they said 'Let's figure this out.'" Incredible Passion Mark Montgomery, who has built a name for himself as one of the Southeast's most dynamic entrepreneurs, is the CEO for Blue Chair Bay Rum. His firm, FLO {thinkery}, was retained to help turn Kenny's vision into reality. Says Montgomery, "Spend any time with Kenny and you'll find that he's incredibly passionate, as well as focused. He gave us a level of access that allowed us to really understand his vision and what drives him. And we came to understand that he is simply about creating great experiences, whatever the medium. Kenny will inevitably go with quality; and as a CEO, you couldn't ask for better marching orders."