Bourgtastic!

A bourgie friend of mine recently introduced me to the wonderful world of single-malt scotch.

I feel like I’m finally old enough to explore the upper echelons of alcohol consumption. I started off with vodka in high school, lol. Then “graduated” to horrible, horrible beer in college: National Bohemian (Natty Bo), Milwaukee’s Best (Beast), Coors Light, and the king of shitty beers that people think are good, Corona. Fuck you – it’s a terrible, terrible abortion of a beer.

In my early to mid twenties I decided to stop drinking like the proletariat and limit myself to basically better versions of what I was drinking before. Grey Goose over Absolute, Patron over Cuervo, Chimay over Bud, etc.

But Scotch is something completely different. Complex tastes, incredible variations. Plus you can’t sound like anything but a pimp ordering a “Caol Ila 18, neat with a water back”. Caol Ila 18, incidentally, was the first bottle of scotch I ever purchased. I think I had my first drink in a red plastic cup. Allow me to explain this.

I hate doing dishes. Passionately. Knowing this about myself, I tend to buy plastic cups and paper plates for my own use (although I still use quality flatware, because fuck plastic flatware). I *have* decent plates because there are some things, like steak, that you really can’t eat on a paper plate for functional reasons (any decent knife will turn your paper plate into steaky confetti).

Now, there’s really no cold drink that you can’t drink out of plastic cups. So I just didn’t buy any. They were just more work.

Scotch is the beverage that makes me willing to wash dishes again.

I need to see the cloudiness of the batch, the hints of sediment, the color, the viscosity. I have to keep an eye on how watered down it’s become if I’m drinking it on the rocks, and apply top-offs when necessary. And scotch on the rocks in a great tumbler just looks so damn luxurious. I love it.

I have since bought two sets of tumblers.  Well, I bought one, and one was a gift from the same friend who converted me in the first place.  Both are…. ok.  The glass is a bit too thin on both sets.  The gift set is substantial enough in your hand – it’s a little light.  I really want a glass with a solid base and very clean lines.

My point is I think about things like this.