Townies drink. They carry beer cans like college students carry Hydroflasks. But some get into the harder stuff. This is a post by and for townies, titans, transients, and tramps who enjoy or want to learn more about spirits.
Special thanks to all the townies (of questionable authenticity) who contributed to the post: Josh Miller (El Cerrito Del Norte, CA / Melbourne, Australia), Nick Byron Campbell, (Indian Hill, OH / Bend, OR), Eric Schmidt (Lakewood, CO / Alexandria, VA), Dave Fernandes (Marblehead, MA / Mexico City), Spencer Bolln (Marblehead, MA / Charlotte, NC), and Ethan Pew (Colleyville, TX / East Setauket, NY).
Brandy
(photo source: epicurious.com)
Tastes like: spoiled Capri Sun
Key ingredient: grapes (also, apples, cherries, or other fruits)
Origin story: Brandy was originally created by a Dutchman who wanted to cut down on the cost of shipping wine. They called the creation bradwijn (burned wine). It wasn’t long before Europeans discovered (a) brandy got them burnt far faster than unburnt wine, and (b) they could use the same distillation process to make liquor out of other fruits, molasses, barley, wheat, potatoes, rice, agave nectar.
Recommended Brands:
Remy Martin XO ($35 to $50)
Courvoisier VS ($30 to $40)
Torres Gran Reserva ($20 to $25)
Cocktail: The Sidecar
2 oz brandy
.75 oz orange liquor
.75 oz lemon juice
Shake with ice and serve straight up
Soundtrack: Voodoo (D’Angelo), Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (Perfume Genius), Let’s Get It On (Marvin Gaye), Woman (Rhye).
Party: Red velvet, chaise lounge, candle light, a bottle of Courvoisier, and a divorcee who settled for the first man who swiped right.
Rum
(photo source: liquor.com)
Tastes like: pirates smell (sweet, smooth, and moorish)
Key ingredient: molasses / sugar
Origin story: 17th Century plantation owners in the West Indies offloaded sugarcane waste (molasses) to traders in New England, who distilled “rumbullion” and shipped it to Africa in exchange for more plantation slaves. (Note: rum tastes better if you associate it with palm trees and bikinis rather than slavery.)
Recommended Brands
El Dorado 12 year ($30 to $45)
Dorley’s XO ($20 to $30)
Myers’s ($20 to $30)
Cocktail: The Naughty Pilgrim
1 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz coconut rum
1 oz pineapple juice
1 oz mango juice
.5 oz orange liquor
.5 oz lime juice
Shake with ice, pour over rocks, and top with a shot of dark rum.
Soundtrack: Night Nurse (Gregory Isaacs), Catch a Fire (Bob Marley), The Mollusk (Ween), Pet Sounds (Beach Boys).
Party: The party MUST be on or near a body of water. Best-case scenario: tiki cocktails with a close friend onboard a ship that rocks gently in turquoise waters. Worst-case scenario: swigging a plastic bottle with the town drunk 'Alien' and passing out next to slurry from the abandoned power plant. Modal scenario: sugar high from watery Daiquiris while 50-year old insurance salesmen with pink bellies flopping out of Hawaiian shirts hum Jimmy Buffet songs in blissful pool-side slumber.
Irish Whiskey
(photo source: seriouseats.com)
Tastes like: centuries of British oppression
Key ingredient: barley
Origin story: Whiskey is named after a Gaelic word meaning “water of life.” Irish monks learned how to distill perfume while traveling in the Mediterranean. Being Irish, they figured out how use it for drinking rather than smelling pretty.
Recommended Brands:
Red Breast 12 yr ($45 to $60)
Jameson Black Barrel ($25 to $40)
Bushmills ($15 to $25)
Cocktail: Boulevardier
1.5 oz Irish whiskey
1 oz Campari
.75 oz Sweet Vermouth
Stir with ice and pour over one of them fancy, big ice cubes
Soundtrack: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (The Pogues), Veedon Fleece (Van Morrison), Drunken Lullabies (Flogging Molly), Once (Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova).
Party: A pub boisterous with song, sweat, and car bombs.
Scotch Whisky
(photo source: thespruceeats.com)
Tastes like: Depends on the region. Highland scotch tastes like apple juice, Speyside tastes like Band Aids, and Islay tastes like locomotive exhaust (but in a good way).
Key ingredient: barley
Origin story: Invented by lord knows, recorded by monks, popularized by King James IV at the turn of the 16th Century, and initially used “when making gunpowder to moisten the slurry of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur.”
Recommended Brands:
Lagavulin 16 yr ($60 to $80; John’s pick)
Ardbeg 10 yr ($50 to $70; Caleb’s pick)
Glenlivet 12 yr ($30 to $40)
Cocktail: Rusty Nail
2 oz scotch
1 oz Drambuie
Pour over ice and stir
Soundtrack: “You aren’t sure whether it merits a jazz record or if that would be pretentious. You end up just leaving the radio on in the background, and they play “Hungry Like the Wolf.” (ES)
Also, Midnight Organ Fight (Frightened Rabbit), Come Away with Me (Norah Jones), Fisherman’s Blues (The Waterboys), Bloodflowers (The Cure).
Party: It was supposed to be a quiet night with a few friends and a good bottle. How is it that I feel so awful the morning after?
Vodka
(photo source: liquor.com)
Tastes like: adrenaline or turpentine, depending on whether you buy it off the top or bottom-shelf.
Key ingredient: cereal grains (or, more recently, potatoes)
Origin: Eastern European apothecaries’ attempt to create the “water of life.”
Recommended Brands:
Grey Goose ($30 to $40)
Tito’s Handmade Vodka ($20 to $25)
Luksusowa ($10 to $20)
Cocktail: Moscow Mule
2 oz vodka
3 oz ginger beer
1/2 a lime
pour into a glass (or tin mug) over ice
Soundtrack: How It Ends (DeVotchka), Closer (Joy Division), This is Happening (LCD Soundsystem), Magdalene (FKA Twigs).
Party: Somebody’s cousin brings you to a warehouse in a part of town you didn’t know existed. Fluorescent lights. Cigarette cartons. Unmarked boxes stacked against the wall. Boris and Igor are playing knife games in the corner. A woman with high heels, faux fur, impossible cheek bones, and ice castle eyes approaches and asks, “how much money you make and what car is you drive?”
Gin
(photo source: mixthatdrink.com)
Tastes like: medicinal pine needles
Key ingredient: juniper berries
Origin story: Dutch chemists created gin to treat the gout and dyspepsia. British soldiers stole it for “courage” during the Thirty Years’ War.
Cocktail: Elderflower Martini
2 oz gin
1 oz St. Germain
dash of citrus bitters
shake with ice and pour into a martini glass
Soundtrack: Something Else (The Kinks), Central Reservation (Beth Orton), Wilder Mind (Mumford & Sons), Doggystyle (Snoop Dogg).
Party: You don’t really want to be here, but you need to make an appearance. You order a gin beverage because social norms dictate you should stay for a drink. Your boss shrieks Journey into a karaoke microphone while Greg from two cubicles down tells sexist jokes to the intern who probably should have picked a top that better conceals her Hello Kitty tattoo.
Bourbon Whiskey
(photo source: kitchenswagger.com)
Tastes like: worn leather, with vanilla and caramel overtones.
Key ingredient: corn
Origin: The name bourbon wasn’t used until the mid 19th century, but settlers had been distilling the Americanized version of whiskey since venturing inland two centuries earlier.
Recommended Brands:
Michter’s Small Batch ($40 to $50)
Four Roses Single Barrel ($30 to $45)
Wild Turkey 101 ($20 to $25)
Cocktail: Maple old fashion
2 oz bourbon
.5 oz maple syrup
3 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir ingredients with ice and pour over rocks
Soundtrack: The Band (self-titled), Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones), Traveler (Chris Stapleton), Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Sturgill Simpson).
Party: A poker game. My mind is sharp. The chips are mine for the taking. I don’t feel a buzz. But the river is heartless. And then I stand up.
Tequila
(photo source: kitchenkonfidence.com)
Tastes like: the end, or perhaps the beginning, of all pain. Good tequila disrupts the space-time continuum. Bad tequila makes you wish it didn’t exist.
Key ingredient: agave
Origin story: When Spanish conquistadors ran out of brandy, they figured out how to get drunk off of agave.
Recommended Brands:
Don Julio Anejo ($70 to $90)
1800 Reposado ($20 to $30)
Milagro Silver ($15 to $30)
Cocktail: Ancho Chili Margarita
1.5 oz tequila
1 oz Ancho Reyes
.5 oz orange liquor
1 lime
.25 oz agave nectar
Shake with ice and pour over rocks or straight up
Soundtrack: Raw Power (The Stooges), Sublime (Self-titled), Back to Black (Amy Winehouse), “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (Twisted Sister)
Party: “The invite implied a costume party. You show up dressed like that stupid dancing banana. But no one else is in a costume, in fact they're all dressed quite properly. THE TWIST - you don't give even a little bit of a shit because you're way above that shit and you're already wasted. In fact, you're saving this lame ass party and everybody loves you.” (NBC)
Mezcal
(Photo source: greenbardistillary.com)
Tastes like: tequila, post trial-by-fire.
Key ingredient: agave
Origin story: A lightning bolt struck an agave plant transforming it into aguardiente (flaming water). It is known.
Recommended brands:
Del Maguey Chichicapa ($75 to $90)
Montelobos Mezcal Joven ($40 to $50)
Xicaru Silver ($25 to $35)
Cocktail: Mezcal Margarita
2 oz mezcal
1 oz orange liquor
.25 oz agave nectar
1 lime
Shake ingredients with ice and pour over rocks
Soundtrack: Desire (Bob Dylan), Electric Ladyland (Jimi Hendrix), Feast of Wire (Calexico), Escondida (Jolie Holland).
Party: Less a party than a quest on which you set out across the desert with cassava chips, a handwritten map, two donkeys, and a guide named Estevan in search of a mythical agave leaf with a hallucinogenic aftertaste.
Amaro
(photo source: bonappetit.com)
Tastes like: the lifework of sorcerer with a penchant for variety seeking, botany, and compromising the ability of his guests to drive home.
Key ingredient: lots of herbs
Origin: A monk was wandering through a garden and thought, “how can I get drunk off that?”
Recommended Brands:
Campari ($20 to $30)
Averna ($20 to $30)
Vecchio Amaro del Capo (10 to 15 euros [in Italy])
Cocktail: Campari Spritz
3 oz Campari
3 oz Prosecco
pour over ice and stir
Soundtrack: Low (David Bowie), Freetown Sound (Blood Orange), Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Fiona Apple), I Love You Honeybear (Father John Misty).
Party: A four course dinner stretching late into the night. Conversation never breaks, and everyone has perfect digestion.
Spirits of Westeros
If the characters in Game of Thrones drank more hard booze instead of beer and wine, here are the kingdoms where each liquor would reign.