What's the Bourbon that got you into Bourbon?

[angelshare]

JD got us into American whiskey.

WT + JB ( a tie ) got us into bourbon.

The JB small batches led to our moment of bourbon clarity.

[Ambernecter]

Without doubt it was Maker's Mark!!

This fine drink rescued me from Jack and Jim Beam white - which as a young man in England was pretty much all you got.

Still love the stuff and it is in my opinion a very "user friendly" intro to decent Bourbon for a newbie.

I remember intoducing a very experienced cocktail barman to Bourbon. (his drink was rum by the way.) Maker's was the standout for him mainly for the sheer drinkability of it. Wild Turkey 101 scared him rigid and he couldn't even finish his shot.

I remember that Wild Turkey 101 was way too much for me as a young man as well. Too much rye and a high proof for a "beginner" - love the stuff now as I do the higher proof Bourbons such as Booker's and Stagg.

To sum up I think that Maker's has the perfect balance of proof, price and drinkability to encouage people to move up the Bourbon scale. Something like WT 101 in my opinion could scare off a potential fellow Bourbonian! Something we should to try and avoid at all costs.

[camduncan]

I think if I go back about 15 years - One weekend my Flatmate and I had had a very BAD night with an 1125ml bottle of Bundaberg Rum mixed with Coke

A week or so later, some mates where trying to get me to drink with them at the bar of our Surf Life Saving Club and I just couldn't stomach the rum and coke. Someone offered me a Jim Beam White and coke and the rest is history - I've never touched Rum since.

(It's funny how after one bad night on rum I can't stand the stuff, but I've had several bad nights on bourbon, and can always go back )

[angelshare]

It's funny how after one bad night on rum I can't stand the stuff, but I've had several bad nights on bourbon, and can always go back )

I haven't had a bad night on bourbon for years, but I will say that I've had several in my lifetime. Similarly, though, one bad vodka night soured me on vodka forever. Must be the soothing flavor of oak that allows us to forgive.

[Gillman]

To answer the original question, and if one discounts (non-bourbon, of course) Jack Daniels, I'd say it was Old Fitzgerald when made by Stitzel-Weller. I liked the 80 proof version or maybe the 86. I haven't had it for years and don't know if it still tastes as good as I recall (caramel corn, warm peanut brittle). After a period with that I developed a taste for the rye recipe bourbons, and then the ryes period, but that Old Fitz was a good bridge. Since then I've had some well-aged wheaters which have a concentrated, butterscotch-like taste, but that medium-age Fitz is one I recall with fondness and it was unbeatable on its terms. In those years (in my late 20's early 30's), I enjoyed beer and Fitz went well with that. Say, Matt's Premium from FX Matt's in Utica (from the "beer ball" especially - here I am aging myself) and a Fitz to chase, that went well at summer parties in those years. I still like the boilermaker today, but just one. These days, 'less is more'. (Usually!).

Gary

P.S. A second bourbon I enjoyed at the outset was Old Yellowstone, then a rich, fruity style of bourbon, very good.

[dgonano]

Gary,

When I drank boilermakers I really didn't care about the brand or type of whiskey. Those were tough nights.

But I do remember sippin on some Old Fitz years ago and back in the 60's I bought my first premium bourbon, Wild Turkey.

[cowdery]

I have it on good authority that Muddy Waters was an Old Fitzgerald man.

[cowdery]

I started to drink bourbon after I moved to Kentucky. Before that I mostly drank scotch. We're talking 26 years ago, so it's hard to remember. A friend tipped me off that Kentucky Tavern was bottling 10 year old whiskey as standard KT because of the glut, so I drank that for a while. Another friend who had worked at Stitzel-Weller steered me in the direction of Old Fitzgerald, and I think I discovered Very Old Barton on my own. Those were some of my early favorites. KT, of course, isn't what it was then, but Old Fitz and VOB still are, and are still personal faves.

My parents always drank Mattingly & Moore. At least I don't remember them drinking anything else.

[idpa2000]

Not counting JB White in my misguided youth. When in my late twenties an older Englishman turned me onto Old Grand Dad. We would play golf on chilly late fall days. When we were finished playing he would pull out a flask and share his magic potion. I was somewhat surprised that he was not as scotch drinker. He shared with me that Americans didn't know what a good thing we had right under our noses - Kentucky Straight Bourbon. He died about 10-12 years ago in his 90s. At his funeral we toasted his memory with a bottle of OGD 114 and many happy memories.

[Peter_Pogue]

When my grandmother died when I was embarking on my freshman year of college in 1979, my dad and uncle brought out an uncorked bottle of our family's Pogue's "Old Time" bottled in bond in 1919. I can only describe it as like drinking a mix of dirt and rubbing alcohol; strong yet musty. Very interesting. I didn't care much for bourbon at that point. Then over Christmas break that same year my dad had a bottle of Rebel Yell. Going to school outside of Kentucky made Rebel Yell much like the Coors craze of the early 80s. You couldn't get Rebel Yell north of the Mason-Dixon so every chance we got we picked up bottles of it. Rebel Yell developed my pallet for Bourbon.

[musher]

In college, one of my buddies turned me on to the virtues of Wild Turkey 101. He'd always say that all he needed for a good evening was Wild Turkey, a glass and a bag of clear ice. I've been partial to WT101 ever since, but have recently expanded my horizons to trying many others (and to drinking it neat).