Discerning Drinking, Reborn.

Over twelve years ago, I started a chaptered collection of posts focused on cocktail making, mostly based out of an insensibly-stocked home bar my housemate and I set up in our apartment in Limehouse.  The series ebbed and flowed, and finally juddered to a halt in 2014, because, well, Dubai.  There, it was nigh-on impossible to keep a home bar.  Well, you could, but it was much less affordable, and the discerning drinking, as the series was called, was more fun when it was done during all-day brunches. 

Discerning Drinking started here, celebrating bourbon with a warm and fruity Ivo and the classic Old Fashioned, that over time has become my chosen drink on the rare occasions I go to a bar.  Sometimes, I would make cocktails to celebrate F1 moments, like Eddie’s Super-Screwed Sangria. 

In total, over thirty Discerning Drinking posts were published.  I have more old chapters to re-publish on this blog, but this one won’t wait, and if it does, it’ll never get posted this side of 2030.

It seemed apt that I picked up Discerning Drinking a) with bourbon, and b) on a memorable evening for F1 where Lando Norris took his maiden win in Miami. What led to this moment was not me expecting a win by a driver other than Max Verstappen, but a chance discovery of my old cocktail shaker and strainer at my mum’s house last weekend, long stashed away since that awful evening in May 2014 when Dad passed away, and I had to hurriedly box up my things and run out of London, needing to fly out to Dubai only a couple of weeks after that. 

So, what did we drink this evening?  Well, it was a long-time favourite of The European’s and a new(ish) favourite of mine, the Whiskey Sour.  Dating back to the 1870s, and perhaps derived from the equally fantastic Pisco Sour, this is a sweet and sour aperitif that sounds simple, but is actually intricately layered and complex, and therefore easy to fuck up.  I’ve suffered my fair share of dodgy ones, most recently in Cancún, where it was served to my crying face as a tumbler of whiskey, orange juice, and a dash of lemon.  But when it’s done right…

There are a million verified ways to make a Whiskey Sour.  As always, I let Difford’s Guide take the lead on the best foot forward:

• 2 shots bourbon (cheap and cheerful is fine)
• 1 shot freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2/3 shot simple syrup
• 0.5 shot pasteurised egg white
• 3 dashes of aromatic bitters
• A pinch of salt
• Slice of lemon to garnish

Method:

Throw everything together and shake over ice.  Remove the ice and dry shake, then fine strain into a tumbler filled with ice, before garnishing with the lemon slice. 

Verdict:

The first round we tried was made with a heavily peated Laphroaig that didn’t exactly make the drink unpleasant, but it kind of unbalanced it by knocking the ingredients out of kilter.  I did this to spare The European’s prized bottle of Woodford Reserve ‘Double Oaked’, but for the second round of Whiskey Sours we capitulated, and it completed the drink, showing that bourbon is the best way to go.  The Woodford Reserve also massively improved the colour of the cocktail, from a jaundiced yellow to a luxurious orange. 

To conclude, it pays to make your own Whiskey Sour.  This was a tasty drink, the syrup’s sweetness and the sour lemon in perfect harmony, with the striking bourbon mellowed out by bitters.  The drink is silky-smooth on the palate and goes down a little too easy.  A winner, and one of the best sours I have tried, if I do say so myself.