Whisky Review & Summer Cocktail | 50% ABV

Score: 5/10

**Average. In a good way.**
***TL;DR***
*Glad to have a good quality ‘bourbon’ even if it isn’t a daily sipper*

A theme I’m totally into

Summer’s in full swing here in the Northern half of our little blue sphere. A heatwave fell upon Europe a few weeks ago and it looks like it won’t be the last before September. Maybe that’s just optimism.

This sparked an idea in our Dramface writers group chat. Since the prospect of an ice-cold drink is ever more tempting, why not choose a whisky, review it and make a cocktail with it as well? Quite a few of us liked the idea.

I can’t for the life of me remember who had this brilliant idea, nor can I find the message when looking back. It is a very active chat. In any case, I was immediately on board.

[It was Jackie’s, who was once something of a mixology geek. WMc]

You see, my first contact with spirits was in fact because I got into cocktail making during lockdown. I bought a few books, watched hundreds of hours of cocktail recipes, histories and techniques on YouTube, and began buying a few bottles here and there to make my own home bar, as well as the mandatory shaker.

Whisky was the spirit I enjoyed mixing the most, quickly developing a preference for booze-forward, complex cocktails. I fell deep into the rabbit hole, even starting to make homemade spirit infusions using cooking siphons and nitrogen cartridges, and trying to create my own cocktail recipes, for fun.

But just like that, single malt Scotch whisky swept in and took hold of me. I had by this point accumulated close to 60 bottles destined for cocktail making, including spirits such as gin, cognac, bourbon, rye, but also various liqueurs, vermouths, bitters, amaro - or rather amari if I’m not mistaken - not counting my homemade syrups and diverse concoctions. But these were gradually moved to the basement in order to make room for my growing whisky obsession.

Bourbons and ryes were also relegated to the back of the cabinet, and sometimes that same basement, for a few reasons. Firstly I must admit that, while I enjoy them, I’m not the biggest fan of non-malt whisky in general. There are a few reasons for that. I tend to prefer whiskies that are less oak-driven, and while I enjoy rye in cocktails, and as such wouldn’t call it the devil’s grain, I must admit you won’t catch me drinking rye whisky neat very often.

This might be because there is a clear lack of distribution here for more boutique-y, small scale and enthusiast-acclaimed brands. In my market we tend to get the heavy hitters: Buffalo Trace, Willet, Heaven Hill and so on. While some of their whiskies are great, and even great value, they’re just generally not really my jam for drinking neat.

Now for making cocktails, that’s another story! Rye and Bourbon especially are the base spirits of many classic cocktails, and I find that they mix really well in general. Some of my favourite cocktails are made using either one or the other, such as the Manhattan, Whiskey Sour, Old Fashioned, Vieux Carré, Sazerac, and so on.

I’m debating writing a more in-depth feature on cocktail history and technique, so if you’re interested, tell me in the comments. For now though, I’ll take a little summer break after having written my Malternatives part II.

Review

Uncle Nearest 1856, 100º Proof, Tennessee Whiskey, 50% ABV
£70 or less and widely available

I’m excited for this cocktail-themed streak of reviews on Dramface, not least because it gives me the opportunity to review this bottle. It was gifted to me by a former co-worker on a previous job. I used to guide tours on the double decker buses that criss-cross around the centre of Paris. The guiding team was very international, including nationalities such as Argentines, Dutch, Indian or Americans.

One of the Americans was a lovely lady who I’ll refer to as S. She was a bit older than most of us, being in her fifties, and to a lot of the expats working there she felt like a mom away from home, always caring for us youngsters and being ready to help out. In retrospect, she was too kind to work in the tourism industry in Paris, which feels like a meat grinder sometimes.

S frequently visited her family across the big pond and on one such occasion, hearing that I liked whisky, she brought back this bottle as a gift. Being of African-American origin, I think the story behind the brand resonated with her.

The distillery producing this whisky is located in Columbia, TN, and named after Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green, a former slave who worked for Jack Daniel, teaching the latter the art of distillation including the now famous Lincoln County process, consisting of filtering the new make through a bed of maple charcoal, for additional smoothness. At least that’s what the official website tells us. How much of that is true and how much is extrapolated we will likely never be fully certain, as records from this era are quite patchy. It’s a good story for sure.

Apart from that the official website is quite a pain to read, thanks to countless mentions of useless awards, and marketing blahblah worthy of Whyte & Mackay’s finest marketers. “We chose the mention ‘premium whiskey’ rather than Bourbon because Tennessee whiskey undergoes charcoal filtration, which increases cost and adds smoothness”. “Uncle Nearest fits into sugar-free, carb-free, fat-free, and gluten-free diets — a rarity in the world of whiskey.” ‘Merica.

Apart from all that insufferable jazz, the whiskey itself is quite good, and they’re at least very transparent on its origin. Since 2021, all the whiskey they bottle has been their own and not sourced. They advise to consume it neat, on the rocks, or in any whiskey cocktail.

So that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Introducing a cocktail of my creation, which I’ve named the Claret Snap.

But first, let’s not forget to taste the whiskey neat.

Nose

Very classic Bourbon-y nose. Vanilla cream, coconut milk, amarena cherries. Melted brown sugar on a warm cinnamon roll.

With water: Snickers and peanuts appear, along with charred oak.

Palate

Quite woody from the get go. Not that sweet though. Caramel sauce infused with oak chips. Some not so pleasant bitterness on the finish, but not to a point that it really becomes a problem. It’s a light spirit for sure, and all about the wood.

With water: unfortunately, the bitterness takes centre stage and overshadows the rest.

The Dregs

It certainly is ‘remarkably smooth’, but is it really premium? I don’t think so. There's nothing wrong with this whiskey per se, but it’s not the one that is going to be my bourbon epiphany. Though I am very glad to have a good quality bourbon in the cabinet, especially for these summer months, when the urge to make a cocktail becomes irresistible.

Speaking of which, the reason I’m calling my own creation a Claret Snap, is that it’s a variation on the New York sour, itself a variation on the Whiskey sour. When the New York sour was created in the 1880s it was sometimes called a claret snap, referring to it essentially being a whiskey sour topped with a floating layer of light and fruity red wine, also called claret.

In order to keep the egg white froth intact in this cocktail, I ditched the float and replaced it with a homemade red wine syrup.

Here’s the recipe for the cocktail:

50ml (2oz) Bourbon
20ml (3/4oz) red wine syrup
20ml (3/4oz) lemon juice
White of one egg

Combine into a shaker, shake first without ice, then add about a cup of ice and shake again. Pour into a chilled coupe (or a tumbler with a big rock of ice, or whatever you have on hand), and express the oils of a lemon and an orange zest over the drink, discard the lemon zest and place the orange zest on top of the egg foam. Enjoy, especially if you have a mustache.

Here’s the recipe for the red wine syrup. Don’t worry, it’s super easy:

100g of a fruity, light red wine
100g of white sugar
Two or three orange peels (optional).

Combine the sugar and wine in a pot, and gently heat until the sugar is dissolved. Don’t boil. When the sugar is fully dissolved add the orange peels, take it off the heat and let it cool in the pot. Once cooled, strain the syrup and bottle it in a sterilised jar/bottle (you can rinse it with vodka or everclear, or dip it in boiling water). Keep in the fridge for up to 10-15 days.

Now, with the dram itself, I feel like we should listen to some classic Folk/Americana kind of thing. What about a beautiful song by Kris Kristofferson, Me And Bobby McGee. Have a beautiful summer.

Score: 5/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. AF

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