Health issues and requisite nasty medicine has prevented me from having more than perhaps a single beer. In my ‘Ute’, I was a purveyor of Jack Daniels... a few decades later I was asked why are you drinking that rotgut? I was turned onto Jim Beam. Very smooth compared to Jack. A decade ago I was told Makers Mark makes Jimmy Beam seem like crap. But by then I had stopped drinking. Shame. I also heard that Pappy Van Winkle is the very best but difficult to get and very expensive. Good thing I can’t drink. I can’t keep up with the Bourbon wars.
Here, as well. I only imbibe during the holidays, just sparingly. (My wife told me that dark liquor makes me a mean drunk, so I all but quit it. Still love it.) My usual Christmas Eve drink at dinner is a double, on the rocks. My original ambassador welcome kit came fifteen years ago; it included a sheaf of Maker’s Mark Ambassador cards embossed with my name, and several other trinkets. I got to custom name the barrel, and when it was ready I received a ‘birth announcement’ in the mail with a Willy Wonka golden ticket to go up to the distillery and hand-dip two bottles out of the barrel, as well as the opportunity to buy the barrel head at a discount. In the interim, they send you all sorts of doo-dads at Christmas, like mufflers and scarves for your bottles, sprigs of mistletoe to hang around the neck, all that trifle. All my old documentation got destroyed i a fire, so I re-registered, and barrel 806691 should be ready by 08/20. This time, I’m scheduling a tour of the Loretto distillery to coincide with actually getting to barrel-dip my own. And I’m taking the barrel head home with me.