When the temperature dips, and the sun starts descending below the city-line before 4, I tend to drink more cocktails. Strangely enough, I haven't had rye whiskey in years, though after reading this pean to the drink, I want to go get a bottle....
All but Lost, Rye Is Revived as the Next Boutique Find - New York TimesLET me get straight to the point. Rye whiskey is the world’s great forgotten spirit, distinctive, complex and delicious. It offers a tactile pleasure unlike any other whiskey in the world.
Yet it nearly disappeared from American barrooms and from the national consciousness.
It used to be the signature whiskey of the United States. George Washington distilled it. Men fought over it in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Classic cocktails like the manhattan, the Sazerac and the Ward 8 were invented for it. Humphrey Bogart swigged it. But the rise of vodka, bourbon and single-malt scotch, along with the decline of the distilling industry in the Northeast, the stronghold of rye production, turned rye into a relic.
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Unlike bourbon, which is characteristically sweet, smooth and rounded, rye has a dry, jangly, brash nature.
Perhaps because as a whipper-snapper growing up in Texas, bourbon was what we shoplifted, and frequently drank to excess, or for other reasons, I don't like the taste of bourbon. I always have Irish whiskey in the house (well, except for tonight, boo hiss), nearly always have tequila, often have gin or vodka, but never bourbon. I can't really justify spending over $40 for a bottle of anything though, so may have resurrect long dormant teenage skills to procure a bottle. Ahem.
Tags: drinking
