Bourbon
One of the first alcoholic drinks I ever really had was a shot of bourbon—Wild Turkey, I think—straight from the bottle: I vomited it back up immediately, a polite chuck. That was in high school. At university, I got into Jim Beam, developing a taste for the Black Label—sweeter and stronger—but only with cola, of course. One time I was lucky and acquired a bottle of the Gold Label; I drank that neat, as my palate then desired.
As my tastes have developed, I no longer find bourbon drinkable straight. It is too harsh, too rough. I drink Cougar with cola as something cheap and refreshing. Thanks to Rob, who likes his bourbon, I still try new things: Cougar XS, Wild Turkey Rare Breed, Woodford Reserve, Knob Creek, etc.
Recently we tried Booker Noe’s special barrel bourbon. This is one of the Jim Beam specialty bourbons; they claim it is the “rarest, absolute best bourbon available”. It probably is. It’s fiery. It goes down the throat burning and lights up your whole body. I coughed. They should replace the rum that St Bernard’s carry with this stuff, it’s like eight standard drinks per sip! There’s a taste of crystalised orange. It’s very smooth. But too fiery to drink much of and still too rough to really drink appreciatively. Yet problematic to drink it with cola: all you can taste then is cola and bourbon.
In fact, cola corrodes whatever is dipped in it. What can you mix with bourbon to make it truly palatable? I turned to the internet for mixers, but true aficionados drink it neat. The best hint I could find was a comment that it was best mixed half and half. So Rob, Penny and I brainstormed some possible mixers: dry ginger ale, ginger beer, soda water, tonic water, lemonade, and orange juice.
Our results? Soda thins the taste out too much, leaving a mainly soda water flavour. Tonic too thins the taste, leaving mainly its own. I imagine lemonade would be the same, but didn’t get the chance to try. Dry doesn’t mix well: you get the dry ginger ale taste, chased by the bourbon. Ginger beer is probably our favourite mixer, though it mixes the same way cola does; I guess it’s just the novelty. Orange juice was bad: it mixes superbly with a nice scotch, its organic complexity complementing the whisky perfectly—it similarly tries to complement bourbon, but bourbon’s got nothing, so it’s a one-sided taste argument that doesn’t go down too well.
So: bourbon is a fine refreshment, mixed with the same again of ginger beer, or as you like with coke; but to me it seems it will always be a poor person’s scotch.