Recently I suggested drinking whiskey that you don’t necessarily like because it’s interesting and different. Specifically, I suggested this in posts about Islay scotch and a couple of whiskeys from Balcones.
Daniel Whittington expressed this sentiment very well in a video review of 13th Colony Southern Rye. Check it out.
So why would we suggest this admittedly counter-intuitive approach to whiskey? Because once you’ve drunk enough kinds of whiskey, you’re going to learn the meaning of the word generic. Generic bourbon, rye, etc. There are any number of bourbons, for example, that all taste pretty much the same to me. Slight variations on the same note.
So when you find an outlier, it’s pretty cool. It’s just nice, goddammit, to have a whiskey that explodes in your mouth with unexpected flavors and sensations. And here’s the deal: you might hate it, like it, or be indifferent, but your favorite whiskeys are going to be those that are different.
And how are you going to discover them if you’re not willing to take a chance sometimes?