You’re probably drinking bourbon wrong. Here’s how to do it correctly – in 5 steps

Oh, how often you have to deal with platitudes and half-truths when it comes to whisky! People like to hear that single malt Scotch is ‘better’ in quality than blended Scotch (no – that has nothing to do with quality, but with consistency). Or: the more obscure a brand, the more ‘noble’ it is (no, for example, there are no restrictions on quality at a local J&B). Hey, jumping to conclusions like that is usually based solely on pricing etiquette.

And very few people have an opinion about Irish whiskey (yes, with an “e” – more on that below), other than that you get Jameson if you order a round of shots at the bar. The same goes for American bourbon: “Isn’t that the stuff you mix with Coke?”

Let’s clear up some prejudices! There are excellent whiskeys in every price range. And these come from all over the world. From the US for example – which brings us to today’s topic: Bourbon, baby!

How do you drink your bourbon?

No, don’t drink your bourbon as a shot. And not in whiskey and cola (rum goes better with cola anyway). I would even go further and say: Bourbon is not a party drink.

You’re better off drinking yours at home. Fun with friends. All you have to do is follow these short recommendations:

To be considered bourbon, a whiskey must meet a few requirements: It must be made in the US (no, not necessarily in Kentucky, although most distilleries are still located there). It must be made from a distillate of a grain blend containing at least 51 percent corn (it usually also contains rye or barley). Further requirements include alcohol content, which must not exceed 80 percent during production and must not exceed 62.5 percent at the beginning of maturation, and storage in new, charred oak barrels. The latter, for example, is an important difference with Scotch, which matures in former Spanish sherry casks or – ha! – matured in American bourbon barrels that have been previously cleaned with sulfur candles.

Despite these guidelines, bourbon remains a fairly broad category of spirits that can sometimes seem confusing to the novice. But just reading the label on the bottle will give you a lot of information. It is true that in some cases this information is coded, such as the traditional letter code that Four Roses uses to indicate the location of the distillation, the yeast strain, whether it is pure bourbon, and so on. At High West, for example, the grain recipe is specified and whether the bourbon or rye comes from the major distilleries MGP Indiana or Heaven Hill or is distilled in-house.

Well, no one is asking you to become a nerdy connoisseur overnight. To start, note the term “straight bourbon,” which means that no other distillate has been added to the product. And as a second step, look at the age statement on the label, if there is one. By law, a pure bourbon must be aged for at least two years. If the whiskey is older, the brand will want to mark it as ‘aged’. Especially if it comes from a newer manufacturer, the bourbon is quite young – but that does not necessarily detract from the quality and enjoyment.

Which brings us to the next point:

“If you spend more than $40, you’re doing it wrong.” This statement from whiskey entrepreneur Beau Williams in the interview with Liquor.com was a few years ago and should therefore be adjusted slightly upwards, but in essence it is still correct: everything above 50 Stutz is only interesting for nerds.

Certainly, for collectors, there are extra old small batch Pappy Van Winkle bottlings available for tens of hundreds of dollars. But you can also find excellent quality for smaller budgets up to 50 francs per bottle. A Wild Turkey 101-proof, for example. Or the maker’s mark. Or the products of Heaven’s Hill Distillery (Evan Williams, Larceny, etc.).

So you bought yourself something nice. How do you drink it now?

As already mentioned, bourbon is not a party drink. Much better to pour some into a regular Rocks/Old Fashioned glass and sip.

Or, even better, in a classic Scottish Glencairn glass.

Straight up or on the rocks? Both. Bourbon whiskeys tend to have strong, bold flavors that aren’t intimidated by a few ice cubes.

For higher “proofs” (= spirits with a higher alcohol content) you can add a glass of water, just like with a good whiskey. Hey, the word whiskey(e)y comes from Gaelic after all uisge beatha ab, which means something like ‘water of life’ (uisge = ‘water’, beatha = ‘life’).

Yes, the same applies here: thanks to its strong flavors, bourbon can certainly be drunk as a cocktail. No, we’re not talking about whiskey and coke here. This is about the time-honored classic: Old Fashioned. Sazerac. Manhattan. You know.

Drink historians will now argue that the above cocktails date from an era when rye whiskey was the norm, which is why you can or should still use it today. And the Sazerac has the cognac option instead of whiskey. But the fact is that classic whiskey cocktails go well with a good bourbon.