Here’s what you do. You find half a dozen bottles of booze that are linked together somehow. Maybe they’re the same style. Maybe they’re from the same region. I don’t know. It can be a thin thread.
I chose whiskey, all from North Carolina and Virginia.
Then you call up some friends. Not too many. Just a few. Make sure one of those friends can make a really good drink. Find a working art studio if you can. Having paintings (nudes, preferably) around helps facilitate conversation. Get some good glasses and start pouring.
Go easy on the pours. You have several whiskies to get through. Taste the booze neat first. Then drop a big hunk of ice into the glass. Then get that dude that can make a mean drink to make a round of mean drinks. So you get to sample the whiskey in three different forms: neat, with ice, and dressed up. This should all take at least three hours. Probably more like four. Tell stories. Talk shit. Say things like, “am I crazy, or do I get a hint of fig on the nose?” Talk about twin girls you went to school with named Candi and Brandi. Look at the art. Drink more whiskey. Pick a favorite. Drink all of that bottle. Get into a fight with rolls of bubble tape.
Keep an eye out for the story about the craft distilleries in North Carolina and Virginia who are beginning to make seriously good whiskey in an upcoming issue of BRO. In the meantime, here’s a short video of an “unofficial” BRO whiskey tasting in the hip River Arts District studio of Kevin Palme (http://www.kevinpalme.com).
(Ed. note: We at BRO do not condone chair spinning, no matter how gleeful, that close to the art. Keep it off the wall, guys.)
Follow Graham Averill’s adventures in drinking and Dad-hood at daddy-drinks.com
