Whiskey

I know that most readers of This Blog and You consider me to be a real serious whiskey drinker, and perhaps some of you think that I drink whiskey. Many is the time when I have been stopped in the hallway going to Anyclass 101, and asked, “Now Ryan, why are you such a serious whiskey drinker?” The answer is simple: street cred. The inherent machismo that goes along with being a real serious whiskey drinker like me just naturally lends itself to assumptions of manliness that I have been unable to garner any other way. The fact is, if you drink whiskey, you’re cool. Real cool. There’s not a lot to figure out here.

Despite the admonishments of my relatives and clergymen, I’ve decided to take it all to the next level. I’m actually going to drink a whiskey. Yeah, I know. It’s pretty official, sometime around late summer, early awesome, I’m going to straight up throw it down and let the accolades from my fellow inmates come flooding into my bloated ego like a river of life.

In addition to being a serious whiskey drinker, I’m also known as a meticulous researcher, and the subject of whiskey is by no means immune to my diligence. Needless to say, I don’t know the first thing about whiskey, other than it’s probably glorious, and I sure as heck don’t need the bartender picking up on that little bit of trivia. I actually think the worst thing that could possibly happen is that the guy would card me. That would be so lame… But I digress, we’re talking research here. Apparently, there are four main types of whiskey, each with their respective subsets and subsubsets.

• Scotch
• Malted
• Grain
• Vatted
• Irish
• Single
• Pure Pot Still
• Canadian
• American
• Kentucky
• Bourbon
• Rye
• Corn
• Tennessee

Not too much contest, is there, really? Tennessee, for sure. And according to my queries of the not-overly-helpful Ask.com, there are three primary ways to take your whiskey: mixed, on the rocks, and neat. You can probably guess what the first two mean, but what the W is neat? Apparently it means “straight up.” My only question is, why would you say “neat” when the opportunity to use the phrase “straight up” is staring you right in the face? I’m not going to say “neat.” I just can’t imagine a real serious whiskey drinker like me saying that. It’s dumb.

In addition to the proper usage of a serious whiskey drinker’s lexicon, I also am going to have to start working on the voice that I’ll be using. I only have about five months to get it right, so I’ll have to hustle. I’m thinking about going with some sort of Clint Eastwood derivation. I’m open to suggestions though.

The etymology of the word “whiskey” comes from a Gaelic expression meaning “water of life.”

-Ryan