She had dreamed up the pie while her son George, Rupp s uncle, was managing the Melrose Inn in Prospect, a suburb of Louisville, and the name was simply pulled out of a hat. Alan's father doesn't know. His other siblings aren't in on the secret. Sheila was told the recipe on her wedding day, a week before she started making Derby Pie. It's the only thing I've learned to cook.
Details do, however, leak out.
Bob Donald figures that there are eggs in the pie because he sees the cartons. He learned there's no bourbon in it during the big lawsuit against a distillery that tried to use the pie's name on a bourbon spiked version. The Rupps say that they buy their chocolate chips directly from Nestle and their walnuts from Diamond, so those are certainly ingredients. By now she can bake 200 pies a day, and can still manage to eat a piece a day, justifying it by consuming only pies that don't look just right. It's the only time I get a glass of milk.