This is a very light and refreshing drink with a mild fizz.
1.0 oz Bourbon
0.5 oz Orange Liqueur
1.5 oz Limoncello
3.5 oz Lemon Lime Soda
0.25 oz Lime Juice
2 dashes Bitters
I mixed everything except the lemon lime soda in a shaker. Strain it into a glass. Add the lemon-lime soda and stir. Enjoy.
This was seen on the Common Man Cocktails website.
When I first considered trying a bourbon after all of these years, the reviews resoundingly said that Buffalo Trace was the “go-to” bourbon, popular and relatively inexpensive. It just so happens that the Buffalo Trace Distillery also makes Pappy Van Winkle, a very sought after bourbon (in some opinions, over-hyped and over priced).
So into the ABC Store. “One Buffalo Trace please”… Okay, they didn’t laugh at me, but they made it clear that, in North Carolina anyway, Buffalo Trace didn’t stick around long after a shipment comes in. By pure chance, I walked into one of the ABC Stores that I visit less frequently. There, on the shelf, were a couple of bottles of Buffalo Trace, behind the hand-written sign stating “One per customer, per day”. By this time, I had purchased and tried a few other brands. But, given that Buffalo Trace was the first bottle I had been looking for, I grabbed one of the bottles and made my way to the cashier. A few days later, my usual store got in 8 bottles and they were gone in short order. Whether the difficulty in getting this product is real or artificial, I can’t say.
[more coming]
Age: No age statement, but thought to be 8-10 years
Proof: 90% (45% ABV)
Price: $29 for 750ml
Buy Again: Probably not, given it’s price compared to others I like equally as well…
A sweet and creamy winter cocktail.
1 oz bourbon
1 oz crème de cacao
1 oz half and half
One egg white (I didn’t do the egg white and it was still pretty creamy)
Dash of simple syrup
Dash of salt
Add ingredients to a shaker filled with ice, shake vigorously, strain into a cocktail glass. “Garnish with nutmeg, cranberries, and a sprig of rosemary.” (Okay, so they lost me after cocktail glass)…
Source: www.townandcountrymag.com
Simple proportions, simple flavors.
This sweet, bourbon-based cocktail has a creamy/frothy consistency due to the pineapple juice.
1.0 oz Bourbon
1.0 oz Triple Sec
1.0 oz Creme de Banana
1.0 oz Pineapple Juice
Into a shaker with ice, add all of the ingredients. Shake, then strain into a glass with some of the ice.
This really isn’t a cocktail, but my recent experience with Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond with Coke, led me, naturally, to the name of this “cocktail”. So much oak…
1 oz Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon
3 oz Coca Cola
Ice
Place ice into glass. Pour in the bourbon. Add the Coke.
OAK!
With the Evan Williams 1783 getting low, and my mini bottle comparison proving that I don’t know beans about bourbon, I went to Reddit and a few other sites looking for low cost, much appreciated bottom shelf (or bottom adjacent) bourbons.
Repeatedly, Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond (White Label) kept coming up. And guess what? It was on sale! So 750ml made the trip back to the lair.
You know what I smell? Corn! Imagine that! Given it’s 100 proof, I expected to have my nose burst into flame, but the alcohol wasn’t overwhelming. I can also get some oak.
Tasting it gave me sweetness, corn, and oak. And there is the alcohol! Surprisingly, it might have been less imposing than the lower proof 1783. I added ice and this helped quite a bit. I have read of people saying that they taste peanut of all things. Over ice, I swear I can taste peanut!
Hmm. So far, drinking any base spirit straight isn’t my favorite thing to do, although I keep trying! So what to do? I added it to Coke in a 1:3 ratio (1 part bourbon, 3 parts Coke). The survey says: Oak! Vanilla. Pepper. So much oak. I think I shall call it Oak-a Cola. I don’t dislike it, but the oak is very prominent. And I get a peppery heat, almost more so than an alcohol burn.
So, even if I can’t drink it straight, there are always cocktails.
Age: At least four years (a requirement for bottled-in-bond bourbons)
Proof: 100 (50% ABV)
Price: $13 for 750ml (on sale)
Buy Again: Probably (or similar)
After a little progress trying to sip rums neat, I thought I’d revisit Bourbon. Now, mind you, I NEVER thought I’d be traveling towards this crossroads again, waiting for the devil to appear at midnight.
But dark rum and I are now friends and dark rum has some of the same characteristics of my mortal enemy of old, whiskey.
After one too many YouTube videos proclaiming how sweet and smooth various bourbons were, I decided to make a great sacrifice and try some.
I already have one, Evan Williams 1783, that I bought for mixing. But the purpose of this endeavor was to find something I could sip straight or over ice. To be fair, I hadn’t tried the Evan Williams straight. I also had a miniature of Larceny that was attached to a full size bottle of something else.
At my last visit to the ABC store, I asked the manager what he recommended. Without hesitation he said, “Maker’s Mark“.
I had learned that Maker’s was a wheated bourbon and that was supposed to yield a sweeter spirit.
Back to the web. I ended up with a list, and on the next trip, picked up miniatures of Knob Creek, Maker’s Mark, and Woodford Reserve. To be clear, Knob Creek and Woodford aren’t wheated, but they are popular bourbons in their price range.
Did I mention that bourbons seem to be pricey? A 750ml bottle of anything above the bottom shelf goes for $30 and up! Even the three miniatures ran me $12 and change!
My goal was to only sample each, so I poured 1/4 oz of each into separate glasses. I let them sit for a couple of minutes. I took in the aroma from each and tried to see what I could take away.
The aroma of all of the samples was sweet. Not surprisingly, corn. And some alcohol. Maybe a bit of oak. I’m not one who can start listing all of the fruits and spices. I get corn and some oak.
So, let the sipping begin! Again I find that the alcohol overwhelms my taste buds before I can get much. I had read to add a few drops of water and to let it sit. Doing so does allow me to taste more than the alcohol, but I’m back to some sweetness, some corn and some oak. Not bad, since corn and oak should be in a bourbon.
I also read that being careful not to breath in helps with the alcohol burn. True, but even with these steps, I can only take a couple of sips before my tongue is numb. A few minutes later, try, try again.
With Evan Williams 1783 in the comparison, I learned some good news about my lack of sophistication. I can buy cheap bourbon and it tastes the same to me as something twice the price!
Along the same lines as my rum, I tried each with Coca Cola.
Makers, more burn, even with the cola. 1783 was quite good, with the oak forward. The Knob Creek and Woodford both added a peppery spice kick.
Today I tried another Bourbon cocktail. Despite the list of ingredients, it is not my usual sugary, fruity cocktail. The bourbon and the bitters give this one a more grown up flavor. I’m not quite ready for savory cocktails, but this could be a step in that direction.
0.5 oz Lemon Juice
0.5 oz Orange Juice
0.5 oz Pineapple Juice
0.25 oz Demerara Syrup
0.5 tsp Grenadine
1.5 oz Bourbon Whiskey
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Add all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Larceny
The clever label with the old style key and keyhole are a good match for the Larceny name. You can find the backstory repeated ad infinitum on every other website.
Larceny is a “wheated” bourbon, where wheat replaces rye as the second grain after corn. This tends to make for a less “spicy” and sweeter tasting bourbon. Wheated bourbons include Maker’s Mark, Weller, and the well known, if over-hyped Pappy Van Winkle.
Larceny is a very divisive bourbon. Some people absolutely hate it, but I think that for a bourbon with a shelf price in mid $20 range (for a 750ml), it is pretty good. I originally tasted this from a 50ml “collar” (a free miniature attached to a different bottle). I recall liking it compared to Maker’s Mark.
As always, I waited for a chance to catch this on sale. Sure enough, NC ABC runs sales on the 750ml or the 1.75l every other month it seems.
When revisiting Larceny, I again enjoyed it. It is sweet, given both the corn and wheat. Occasionally I taste cherry, a hint of oak, and a subtle cinnamon. At other times, I don’t get the cherry, and the oak comes across more as a tobacco. This goes more to my unsophisticated palate than to what’s in the bottle.
Proof: 92 (46% ABV)
Price: $24 for 750ml (on-sale, NC ABC)
Buy again: Yes
This was a tough one. While making some cocktails with my son and his girlfriend, my son asked what kind of whiskey I had.
There was no whiskey in the cabinet, and until that point, I never intended to have whiskey anywhere near me. (If you haven’t read the intro page, now is a good time).
By this time, I had tried the Meyers’s rum, and it had reminded me of whiskey, but perhaps because of the presentation, had not turned me off to the taste.
So I went down the rabbit hole of reviews and a visit to the ABC store to snap pictures of the entire wall of whiskey, focusing (no pun intended) on the middle shelf. At this point, I discovered just how high-end whiskey had become. So, I also snapped away at the bottom shelf for reference.
I’m not a whiskey drinker, and my intention was to ALWAYS mix it. Even then, I didn’t want to settle for the bottom shelf. Strangely enough, there appears to be a fairly good opinion of some of the bottom shelf whiskey when it comes to mixing (and a few that are decent neat sippers).
I finally settled on Evan Williams. Then the challenge became a choice between the lower end Evan Williams products, and the lower middle shelf.
The online consensus was that even the bottom shelf Evan Williams bottles would work in a cocktail. But in the end I decided to go one step up to the Evan Williams 1783 Bourbon.
Update: Evan Williams 1783 has a caramel flavor with a slight spice.
Distiller: Heaven Hill
Proof: 86 (43% ABV)
Paid: $17 for 750ml
Buy Again: Yes
The Tipsy Nerd's Lair