Scotch and Social Status
This piece on the growing popularity of scotch in Latin America reminds me again of the connections between scotch and social status in the developing world. When I lived in Asia, wherever I was, anyone who was anyone had at least one bottle of Johnny Walker around. It was the go-to drink for any high-class social occasion the upwardly mobile attended. Now that the upper-middle class in Latin America is growing fairly rapidly, it’s hardly surprising that scotch sales are on the rise there too.
Another point. Admittedly, I am fiercely nationalistic when it comes to alcohol. The Belgians make amazing beer, but beer in the United States is of a greater variety and can be of equal or even greater quality. No other nation comes close. I will give the Europeans the gin category, both the British and the Dutch, but the Americans are closing the gap with such gems as Bluecoat and Death’s Door. Vodka, well, I’m glad Americans aren’t famous for that. And while good scotch is good, drinking overseas is consistently frustrating for me because the glories of bourbon seem almost totally unknown through most of the world. The only bourbons most bars have are brands that I have never heard of and am scared to try. If I’m lucky, some Jim Beam. Which isn’t very lucky.
Given the connection between social status and American consumer products through much of the developing world, it’s interesting that this doesn’t extend to alcohol. That includes beer as Heineken, Beck’s, and other overpriced bad European beers dominate the foreign beer market, even in Latin America.
I wonder if this might be because Americans drink it all. There are some very nice Swiss white wines, but not much gets exported- the crafty Swiss keep it for themselves.
I don’t know much about that, but it could be. Given the growth in bourbon and rye consumption in recent years, it’s possible that the domestic market is sopping up all Kentucky can produce.
But it doesn’t need to be made in Kentucky to be bourbon. If we’re drinking all that Kentucky can produce, then some enterprising soul should set up a distillery in Illinois or Iowa or something.
There is the Tuthilltown bourbon produced in the Hudson Valley which has a very good reputation but is shockingly expensive, really far too expensive to be even remotely competitive or reasonable to buy. Like $40 for 375ml.
The Cedar Ridge distillery near Cedar Rapids, IA does, in fact, produce bourbon. It’s not very good, IMO; it’s a very young bourbon.
I dunno. I think that, at least theoretically, you can scale up the production of beer and most types of distilled spirits more easily than you can scale up the production of good wine.
At least for beer, part of it is undoubtedly that beer is a perishable good, and you need to have some know-how to transport beer a long distance and still have it be fresh when it’s at its destination. A lot of brewers have trouble getting fresh product halfway across the country, forget about going foreign.
Upping production of aged spirits is difficult because of the time involved. You can produce more, but you still have to wait on it to age properly and you have to have the warehouse capacity to let it age properly.
When it comes to bourbon, I don’t think there is any danger of the domestic market sopping up everything. The explosive growth in rye (which is still very small compared to bourbon) has been more of a challenge. Even lower or middle shelf ryes like Wild Turkey or Sazerac can be hard to find because the demand has increased so much so quickly.
Japan went through a similar process in the post-war era, with various labels of Johnny Walker denoting rising status in a kind of economic escalation centered on the semi-annual gift-giving traditions. Tastes seem to have broadened a great deal in the ’80s, as the rising power of the Yen made a lot of high-quality imports widely accessible.
I tried to convince my (Japanese) father in law coming home from a trip to the US that he shouldn’t bother to buy bottles Johnny Walker for friends and co-workers,since his friends could get the same stuff over there pretty easily.
I explained that bourbon being not only uniquely American but also kinda unusual in Japan and would probably make a more distinctive gift.
It didn’t work, but it was worth a shot.
Bourbon may not be well-known in Japan, but it’s definitely obtainable and has a following. There are a few bars around my area that have bourbons available, but they’re mostly run by people with an American fetish. The one bar I frequented also would have the occasional bluegrass jam session.
If we want to increase the cachet of American whiskey in Latin America, we’ll have to start calling it boor-BONE instead of BERBin.
Or perhaps put a picture of this guy on the label.
I never developed a taste for hard alcohol (and thank God, too, because I’d be dead). But I love great beer and great wine. Here in northern California, the proliferation of great beers has skyrocketed over the past decade, and a healthy percentage of them are local brews. Think back 20 years, in fact, and it’s fair to say we’ve entered a golden age of beer drinking.
Patrick Dennis made an observation about rich Mexicans and Scotch in Genius (1962). I don’t have a copy any more, but it was essentially that they bought Scotch because it was expensive, and therefore chic, but didn’t like the taste of it, so they would mix it with dreadful things. Of course his wording was vastly superior to my paraphrase, but that’s the gist of it. Having lived in Mexico for four years, I certainly observed this phenomenon.
but almost everything does test better when mixed with Jarritos Toronja
Dear Erik: According to my daughter who’s living in Lyon, bourbon is becoming a tipple of choice among French hipsters of means.
(Boy, that sounds like a fun crowd to hang with, huh?).
Probably a bunch of monarchists.
And while good scotch is good, drinking overseas is consistently frustrating for me because the glories of bourbon seem almost totally unknown through most of the world.
Bourbon? really?
Lemme splain this to you.
Scotch makes you dream: think Thomas. Yeats. Burns.
Bourbon makes you hallucinate: think Paul, Gingrich, Frist
ARE WE CLEAR NOW????
Scotch is dirt-flavored whisky. (The romantics call it “peat”.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Boot at list et’s an onnust derrrrrt!
No — think Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and then Faulkner again.
Troll.
That’s easy for you to say, you got them shaved feet and all…
Welsh, Irish, and then Scot.
I don’t know about the Welsh, but I’m fairly sure that the Irish spell whiskey correctly.
Kentucky>Ireland>Scotland>Canada>Tennessee.
Anyone who would presume a different order of the brown stuff should stick to rum and cokes.
One question I have–is there even a tradition of Tennessee whiskey outside of Jack Daniels? Or are they one and the same?
Wikipedia sez:
Tennessee whiskey is Straight Bourbon Whiskey produced in the state of Tennessee. This definition is legally established under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and at least one other international trade agreement that require that Tennessee whiskey be “a straight Bourbon Whiskey authorized to be produced only in the State of Tennessee”, and the law of Canada, which states that Tennessee whiskey must be “a straight Bourbon whisky produced in the State of Tennessee”. However, three of the four current producers of Tennessee whiskey disclaim references to their products as “Bourbon” and do not label them as such on their product bottlings.
Some Tennessee whiskies undergo a filtering stage called the Lincoln County Process, in which the whiskey is filtered through a thick layer of maple charcoal before it is put into charred new oak barrels for aging. The companies that produce whiskey in this manner say that this step improves the flavor of the whiskey. The filtering process is named for Lincoln County, Tennessee, which contained the Jack Daniel’s distillery when it originally began its operation. However, in 1871, the boundaries of the county were changed, such that the Jack Daniel’s distillery and the surrounding area became part of the newly created Moore County. The only whiskey currently produced within the current boundaries of Lincoln County is Prichard’s Tennessee Whiskey.
The charcoal filtering process is considered an additive, so JD is by definition not bourbon, which permits no additives other than grains and yeast.
George Dickel ain’t bad and is about as old.
I always heard the difference between (Kentucky) bourbon and Tennessee whiskey was that Tennessee was “sour mash” whiskey. But now wikipedia tells me that almost all bourbons are made with sour mash, so what do I know.
Bourbon is also sour mash, yes. The only difference between bourbon and Tenessee whiskey is that Tennessee Whiskey takes bourbon and pours it through some charcoal.
And apparently really shitty bourbon…
And usually doesn’t use new barrels.
OT FYI: Daniel is one of a very few anglicized Welsh patronymics (Lloyd/Floyd is another) commonly not spelled with an ‘s’ on the end, unlike, say, Stevens, Jones, Evans, Williams, Hughes, Owens, Jenkins, Davis/Davies, etc, which are almost always spelled with the ‘s’.
The whiskey is therefore Jack Daniel’s, with an apostrophe.
Also, the Welsh whiskey industry was largely destroyed by a combination of Welsh Methodism and the demand for Welsh coal miners in the new world, which is why much of it wound up in Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Welsh word for whisky/whiskey is the borrowing wisgi, or chwisgi in some dialets (ch as in Scottish loch).
Spelling of English words in Wales is often fluid due to many factors, not the least of which is a fondness for taking the piss out on the English. Americanizations are common (program, not programme; realize, not realise) but by no means universal. The same goes with whiskey/whisky, and I don’t think it has anything to do with whether the stuff comes from, except perhaps among the more educated.
“realize, not realise”
If you go and look in an old copy of Fowler’s Modern English Usage (some bastard stole my copy), I think you will discover that realize used to be the correct usage in real English and realise is an Anglicization. Perhaps the Welsh are more conservative than the English.
When you have to front-load your argument by comparing British Isles writers to American politicians, you’ve pre-lost it. Besides, whiskey didn’t make Dylan Thomas dream, it made him dead.
And that’s a bad thing….how? Besides, he died in an American bar! They probably watered down his Scotch with bourbon
According to some evidence Bourbon was a source of trouble for Edgar Allen Poe.
And Faulkner, I believe.
I shudder to think of the alternate universe where a sober Poe lived to a prosperous ripe old age and wrote a series of hugely commercially successful detective novels in which the slightly eccentric Roderick Usher solved crimes with the help of his talking raven, Lenore.
Oh, and about bourbon. I lived in London for about half of 2009, and it was definitely catching on, although often abused (I was in a pub one time and the guy next to me ordered Maker’s Mark and Diet Coke; I almost did a Danny Thomas).
The Whisky Exchange had a quite fine selection of bourbons and the people working there knew them very well.
He night have been diabetic. Distilled spirits have no carbs.
“Distilled spirits have no carbs.”
??? What is alcohol?
Bourbon mixes perfectly well with Coke, if you like that sort of mixer. Maker’s Mark recommend it themselves, by the way.
The only appropriate mixes for bourbon are spring water and home made sweet tea. If you want to live dangerously, you can add mint or lemon to the tea.
I will defend this opinion any morning with pistols for two, followed by coffee for the survivor.
This implies that Manhattans are unacceptable, which I do not accept.
professionals and hipsters make their Manhattans with rye
Try finding rye anywhere outside of North America.
To be fair, it’s still not too easy to find decent rye in the USA. Even in stores with a good selection of bourbons, there is often only a few types of rye to choose from. That’s changing, but high quality rye is still something of a novelty.
Aaaah, Old Overholt is good enough for most applications. Diminishing returns starts to set in with Bulleit’s and Old Potrero.
Have you considered the possibility that scotch is objectively superior?
/troll
Yes. And it can’t hold a candle to a top-shelf bourbon.
Consider it considered . . . and rejected.
Have you considered the possibility that you are the love child of Adolph Hitler and Genghis Khan?
Slightly OT – I was in Moscow a few years after the USSR collapsed.
Russians (usually Russian mobsters) started to open up stores, bars and restaurants.
I went to one mob-run joint and ordered a Kremlyovskaya vodka on the rocks.
I got a huge rocks glass filled with vodka, with one tiny ice-cube in it. When I asked for more, the bartender looked at me like I had 3 heads.
I realized that the vodka was far cheaper to make, and more available than the ice.
Oh well, somehow or other, I got through it! :-)
Really, though, bourbon? Someone tell me of a bourbon that matches Laphroaig or Balvenie. Does any bourbon even come close?
Go ahead and drink your peat juice. More bourbon for me.
And therefore more of the superior drink for the rest of us.
Yes. You can tell the ones that do, because on the label they’ll say “Bourbon.”
George T. Stagg, Pappy Van Winkle 15 y/o, Four Roses Single Barrel, Elijah Craig 12 y/o, wanna hear more?
I love both Scotch and bourbon, but they taste so different comparing them is like comparing apples and roast beef.
Yeah, I loves me some Balvenie, but at a given age the corresponding Van Winkle is just tastier.
I have honestly never heard of those, and I take this as a challenge. More drinking!
Glad to be of service! The first two are pretty hard to find though.
Pappy!!!!
And Elijah Craig has got to be the best value proposition in bourbon.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who has noticed this. Elijah Craig is an outstanding value.
Is Elijah Craig better than my go-to, Eagle Rare? (And it’s stablemate, Buffalo Trace?) Honest question — I’m not sure I’ve ever had it.
Buffalo Trace is also a great value.
What’s the price point here? I’ve been keeping Russell’s Reserve 10 Year Bourbon or 6 Year Rye, and have been very, very happy with both at ~$25-30/bottle.
You can usually get a fifth of Buffalo Trace for less than 25 bucks.
Where I live, Elijah Craig is priced about halfway between Beam and Makers.
And it’s 94 proof. Nice kick, there.
Pappy (of any age) is the best bourbon.
Blanton’s and Woodford Reserve are also quite good. But if I’m trying to convince a snooty scotch drinker that bourbon can be just as good, I always recommend Pappy.
“I love both Scotch and bourbon, but they taste so different comparing them is like comparing apples and roast beef.”
This is by far the most sensible post in the entire thread.
Had a 15yr. old Laphroig a few years back. Still trying to get the taste out of my mouth. A liquid band aid
Overenthusiastic Scotch proselytisers often make the mistake of giving Laphroaig (or Ardbeg or something) to a beginner. Ruins Scotch for them forever. You have to work up to it, peat-wise.
Why would anyone order bourbon in Scotland? That would be like ordering McDonalds in Paris, or Chicken Cordon Blue at Denny’s.
I was going to work in Applebee’s salad bar, but on second thought won’t.
FYI, they fucking love McDonalds in Paris. France is the second biggest revenue source for the company.
France is the second largest market globally for McDonalds. Regardless of if it’s good or not, it’s there, and they love their Royale Deluxes.
Living in Scotland for a while and yes, the better stores have a couple of bottles of single barrel bourbon amidst the Scotch.
Drunks are Drunks for all that
Finally, a Loomis post I can get on board with. It just rings true.
I grew up around the cult of Johnnie Walker Black and rebelled by developing a taste for Bourban, mixed with a Venezuelan girlfriend. Howls of protests ensued from the authenticity police, along with threats of being sent back to the Desh in order to have my mind decolonized.
But I ask, who is the real Brown Sahib here?
Vishnu, deliver me from expat Bengalis with college degrees.
Or do you mean the other Desh?
Well, maybe if you had mixed it with a Brazilian or perhaps Peruvian…
Thank god, ONE person who can spell “Johnnie Walker.” Thank god, and thank you, Manju.
(I’ll take “bourban” as a mere typo.)
How big a blender do you need to mix in a Venezuelan? Or do you just slice off chunks?
/annoying grammar person
If she’s skinny enough, she doubles as a swizzle stick.
Why doesn’t Canadian Whiskey have a distinctive name?
You have scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka, rye and … Canadian whiskey?
It should be called Cannutch, or something like that.
Most Canadian whiskeys are bourbons, I think.
Bourbon can only be made in the U.S.
Bourbon can only be made in Kentucky
Not true. Although most bourbon is made in Kentucky, as long as you follow the rather strict guidelines, you can make bourbon anywhere.
Anywhere in the US. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me. Until today I thought it was a Kentucky-only thing, too.
Canadian whisky does have a distinctive name. It’s spelled without an “e” (like Scotch whisky).
And really, the name is as distinctive as the spirit itself.
And they have Canadian Mist. The only whisky served in a soap bottle, for the clumsy alcoholic.
Pendleton’s is really good Canadian Whisky, btw.
Canadian Whisky is generally blended — which makes it like most scotch — and is made from a variety of grains.
People disagree on whether bourbon can be made outside of Kentucky. I side with those who say it’s the barrels and the mash rather than the location, but the only non-Kentucky bourbons I’ve tried (from Saint Louis and Japan, respectively) were nothing special.
And I think you generally get a better bottle from Bardstown than from Frankfort, fwiw.
We just call it rye
Yes. In Canada, we call our whisky “rye” although most of it isn’t worthy of the name.
The best one, though, is in fact 100% rye.
Because “Canadian” is, you know, open to interpretation.
Irish whiskey also does not have a “distinctive name.” And it’s superior to Canadian whisky anyway.
Live is too short to be nationalistic about something as important as alcohol. You should drink the good stuff, wherever it’s from.
What if its from Wasilla?
I don’t think we need to worry about Wasilla’s favorite tipple catching on: it’s either Prestone or Sterno I reckon.
Dude, sterno will fuck you up.
ewww…I’ll take Prestone. I’m not gonna mess with the off brand stuff.
Dude! Sterno’s like doing Jello shots!
Every time I go to Brazil some family member is always asking me to get a couple of cases of Chivas and Johnnie Walker at Duty Free. That’s been going since 1995.
Part of the problem with beer may be that American craft brewers aren’t that active as exporters. Stone actively works to prevent it.
I’ve seen Stone brewery represented at beer festivals here in Japan, though I can’t recall ever seeing it on sale. I *may* have seen it as a guest beer at a British pub once.
Actually, a search of Rakuten gets you a few Stone offerings, though for 650yen for one 355mL bottle, I ain’t buying it anytime soon. Link
For the best of both worlds taste, in the NW these days you can’t move without tripping over a dark beer that’s been held in bourbon barrels from a month to a year.
My personal favorite is Pappy’s Dark from Block 15 in Corvallis.
What? What? What? You’re comparing American beer to Abbaye de Leffe? Orval? Aventinus? Franziskaner Weissbier?
*Really*?
Your mom and I had such great hopes for you, Erik!
What is this “American Beer”? Do you mean Budweiser? Coors LIght? Or do you mean the two bottles of Pliny the Elder my liquor store allots to us weekly? Or Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA? Or Old Chub Ale from the Oskar Blues Brewery? I’m unsure.
Sorry Matt. I mean all of the above. I’ll happily subtract Bud/Coors/Schlitz/Stroh’s as not being “American beer” and still put Leffe up against those others. About the only one that even comes close is Allagash Curieux.
I have a friend who owns a terrific beer place. For a long time he had Bud et al listed on the menu under “Industrial Swill,” (I always wondered what his distributors thought about that) and would charge $8 for one. Finally he just stopped serving them altogether as people realized what kind of place he was running. He still has a “Lite-Free Zone” sign on the door.
Lots of great Belgian beer, of course, but Leffe is meh. There are many beers produced just in New York state (including the Belgian styles at Ommegang) that are far superior.
Now Delerium, Chouffe, you might have something.
Ironically, Ommegang is owned by Duvel, now.
Pliny is pretty far ahead not only of Leffe, but of the other American beers mentioned as well. It’s almost not fair to count it.
Three Floyds Darklord, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Surly Darkness.
These beers match up to any Imperial Russian Stouts made anywhere in the world.
Budweiser is Belgian, now, anyway. A proud product of Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V., the same people that bring you Stella Artois.
Leffe?
Maybe it is because of the usual “just send the crappy stuff to the US, they won’t know the difference” but the only Leffe I had was lousy. Like almost Shock Top bad.
I used to drink a lot more bourbon, but I finally just had to admit, I like Scotch better. Nothing against the bourbon-drinkers.
(I do like the Maker’s 46.)
I think perceptions will change over time. japanese whisky now enjoys a very good name and quite a hefty price tag, although it has more in common with scotch than bourbon.
One of the reasons I think it will catch up with scottish whiskies reputation is the amount of craft distilleries in the states who are experimenting making lots of different types of whiskey. In scotland the SWA have pretty much banned any kind of experimenting.
Yes, I had a glass of this stuff from Oregon and it was damn fine. McCarthy’s Oregon Single Malt.
(This was at the Green Goddess in New Orleans, which I encourage you to visit if and when you find yourself in NOLA.)
It seems to me that there was little effort to position bourbon as a high end drink before the last ten years or so. I spent a summer in Kentucky long about 2001, and ran right into the first rush of mass marketed small batch bourbons. I know that high end bourbon existed before Beam and company decided to enter the market, but it wasn’t (I claim on the internet) a focus of the industry.
In fact, if you think about production lead times, the early 2000s is about when you’d expect to see the bourbon industry’s reaction to the craft beer craze.
Also, even when wearing a fancy hat there is no reason to use top shelf bourbon in a mint julep.
This.
Craft beer didn’t really start kicking into high gear until the early to mid-1990′s. Tack on the appropriate aging time, and that drops you just a few years into the first decade of the 20th Century for high end bourbons.
And while I think it’s ridiculous to compare Scotch Whisky to American Bourbon Whiskey, I’d stack up Knob Creek, or the Evan Williams Single Barrel I tried about a month ago up against any Single Malt Scotch Whiskey I’ve ever tasted for complexity of taste, mouth feel, and just general drinkability, and that includes the Islay Malts cited up thread.
until this year most of the high end bourbon was old stock Stitzel-Weller
I first became aware of premium bourbon sometime in the early 1990s. I want to say I had Knob Creek, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. My understanding was that import duties on whisk(e)y had increased and the premium bourbon was being marketed to scotch drinkers experiencing sticker shock. Given the lead time necessary, I don’t know if this adds up. In any case, I only saw this stuff in higher end liquor stores. It was about ten years later that I started seeing premium bourbon in mid-level stores as a routine item.
You can’t go wrong with Bulliet or Bulliet Green Lable Rye or Knob Creek. I buy an occasional bottle of Bookers or Basil Hayden. Some of the best bourbon I’ve ever tasted was Jim Beam in 1976 Bicentennial jug, we drank it in 2004 after my sister found it in a box in the back of a closet.
Label, fer christsakes
All of those are excellent.
One of the local junk shops has one of those bicentennial jugs for sale. I wonder, if I buy the jug and use it as a decanter, will it improve modern Beam?
Erik and I have definitely differed on the topic of alcohol, but we do agree on the excellence of bourbon.
as for gins – Northshore, made somewhere in or around Chicago, is the finest gin I have tasted, at least for martining
The thing I never got about Johnnie Walker: why pay so much for such a mediocre blended whisky? There are so many good single malts for the same price that even if you insist on the cachet of Scotch, Johnnie Walker makes no sense.
Erik,
Is there any environmental concern with bourbon given that it requires only new barrels?
Also, I hope you don’t have any German friends. “No other nation comes close”, really??
Well, I’ve thought of the environmental issue before with bourbon. In the end, the total amount of wood used for these barrels isn’t very big compared to other things and the recycling of the barrels into today’s beer in bourbon barrels trend helps. However, I wonder if it would be possible to reuse the barrels to make bourbon more sustainable.
German beer is of a high quality but is nowhere near American. If you want to argue Germany has the 3rd best beer in the world, that’s fine. I’d probably say that myself.
German beer has high low standards.
It’s lack of variety is what marks it down.
Oddly enough, the de facto lack of variety is my main criticism of American craft brews. While there is a wide range theoretically available, in practice the typical liquor store will have two or three cooler sections of craft brews, the vast majority of which are hoppy IPAs. I like hoppy IPAs, but not all the time. I have to go out of my way to find a craft lager or bock.
It may be that all the used bourbon barrels get sent to Scotland.
Anyone who likes a peaty Scotch should try Lavagulin, an Islay whisky.
“Vodka, well, I’m glad Americans aren’t famous for that.”
Tito’s is pretty good!
Tito’s is good.
However, I’ve contended for a long time that Vodka is hard liquor for people who really don’t like the taste of hard liquor.
Hangar One from St. George’s Spirits, Alameda, California. You won’t need any other vodka after that.
Hangar One is very, very good. But I’ll put in a good word for Crater Lake Vodka from Bend, Oregon.
Also New Deal Vodka from the New Deal Distillery in Portland, Oregon. Good vodka and a great name.
One interesting thing that I have noticed with beers is that nations with warmer climates generally do not make good beers. I’ve had bad beers in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. With very few exceptions have I had anything in these countries that I would try again.
Hey, at least the bad beer in Brazil is very, very, very cold.
Fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon…
But seriously, are you defending Jim Beam, Dr. Loomis? Against foreign whiskeys? Don’t get me wrong, I like some bourbon (Rare Breed!), but some scotch and most Irish is considerably more interesting, no?
No, I’m not defending Jim Beam, I assure you.
Also last time I was in Ireland, where the Guinness is so fresh it tastes like chocolate milk, I saw a lot of kids drinking imports… specifically the Silver Bullet. Terrible, but I assume the same speed as some hipster drinking Bass here.
Saw the same thing in London, in centuries-old classic pubs with great beer on tap. It is to weep.
The phenomenon of the lager lout predates, and is certainly not limited to, American crap beers. Anything that’s cheap and available to the young chav will do.
If one wants to get into drinking good bourbon, what’s the best way to drink it?
I’ve tried a few common but still pretty good bourbons lately (Maker’s Mark and Knob Creek); the aroma is great, but does it take a while to get used to the whole “sipping it straight” practice? Are those fancy whiskey glasses helpful or just for show?
I got started by drinking bourbon on the rocks. In fact, I still drink it that way much (though not all) of the time. A simple rocks glass is all you need, IMHO. You can also cut it with a little water if you’re still getting used to it.
Amateurs will ridicule you for drinking your bourbon on the rocks, but especially with the high proof stuff, watering it down a little bit can make it much more tasteable.
I would say, for any bourbon you are new to, try it neat, try it with a few drops of water, and try it with an ice cube or two. If none of those applications produce a drinkable drink, get a big gulp, pour out half the coke, and go to town.
I think the thing about American Consumer Products As Status Symbols etc etc is that, by and large, Americans are known for having things but not for having *taste*. This may well be an unfair stereotype, but when it comes to status markers I’m afraid you’re rarely dealing with much in the way of high-level rationality. It also cannot help the American cause that status markers used in American films invariably use the same cultural shorthand.
Unfairly or not, if you want to be perceived as having taste as well as wealth (which is, of course, how people with similar levels of wealth differentiate between themselves), you need to acquire clothes, drinks and food with the air of Old Europe about them.
Personally I appreciate both Scotch and Bourbon, and think it’s quite ridiculous to say one is “better” than the other. But from a cultural point of view Scotch marks you as being a “better” person than if you drink Bourbon, even if the Scotch is Johnny Walker Red and the Bourbon is Knob Creek.