Retired Sacramento Officer Passes

**armsmaster270** · 10-25-08, 01:59 AM

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1339580.html

Obituary: Former police officer wrote the book on fine tequilas

By Robert D. D?vila
bdavila@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 | Page 4B
Bob Emmons, a former Sacramento police officer who became a connoisseur of distilled beverages and author of "The Book of Tequila," has died at age 67.
He died Oct. 11 of complications from diabetes, said his daughter Heather.
Although diabetes limited his intake to an occasional small glass, Mr. Emmons became a published authority on liquors through meticulous investigation, including historical research and visits to distilleries. His subjects included gins, vodkas and brandies.
He traveled often to Mexico to tour agave fields, interview growers and distillers, and observe the production process from harvest to distribution for his best-selling work, "The Book of Tequila." Published in 1997, the book contributed to the popularity of fine tequilas among American consumers.
"It appealed to the layman like myself with lots of personal anecdote and history, as well as (to) beverage professionals," friend Jim Fritzsche said.
Mr. Emmons, who also wrote two unpublished novels, became a writer and expert on liquors after various careers. He developed a fondness for tequila in the 1980s while hanging out at Nevada casinos and nightclubs as a booking agent for musicians. He previously spent 10 years as a Sacramento police officer.
Bobby Gene Emmons was born in 1940 in Oklahoma City. He joined the Navy at age 16 and served several years. He moved to California, worked for IBM and became a Yolo County sheriff's deputy before joining the Sacramento Police Department.
He married Phyllus Corradino-Moore in 1960 and had two children before the couple divorced in 1974. A second marriage, to Nell Messinger in 2000, ended in divorce after four years.
Mr. Emmons was a self-confident man with a booming voice who enjoyed telling personal anecdotes while holding forth on the purity, subtlety and complexity of liquors. After publishing "The Book of Gins and Vodkas" and "The Book of Brandies," he planned comprehensive guides on ports, madeiras, liqueurs, cordials and other beverages.
"My father tended to pontificate about things," his daughter said. "He had a lot of fun learning about the different distillery processes. He had a small apartment, and he left a ton of bottles of cognac, Armagnacs and other really fine liquors."