Interesting ramblings about bourbon and life

[Nebraska]

I wouldn't do this again (probably), but in honor of Gary, instead of a link I'm posting the whole damn thing.

an exerpt from "Bourbon by Percy Walker"

Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust.

1926: As a child watching my father in Birmingham, in the exurbs, living

next to a number-6 fairway of the New Country Club, him disdaining both

the bathtub gin and white lightening of the time, aging his own Bourbon in

a charcoal keg, on his hands and knees in the basement sucking on the

siphon, a matter of gravity requiring cheek pressed against the concrete

floor, the siphon getting going, the decanter ready, the first hot spurt

into his mouth not spat out.

1933: My uncle's sun parlour in the Mississippi Delta and toddies on a

Sunday afternoon, the prolonged and meditative tinkle of silver spoon

against crystal to dissolve the sugar; talk, tinkle, talk; the talk mostly

political: "Roosevelt is doing a good job; no, the son of a bitch is

betraying his class."

1934: Drinking at a Delta dance, the boys in bi-swing jackets and tab

collars, tough-talking and profane and also scared of the girls and

therefore safe in the men's room. Somebody passes around bootleg Bourbon

in a Coke bottle. It's awful. Tears start from eyes, faces turn red.

'Hot damn, that's good!'

1935: Drinking at a football game in college. UNC versus Duke. One has a

blind date. One is lucky. She is beautiful. Her clothes are the color of

the fall leaves and her face turns up like a flower. But what to SAY to

her, let alone what to do, and whether she is 'nice' or 'hot' -- a

distinction made in those days. But what to SAY? Take a drink, by now

from a proper concave hip flask (a long way from the Delta Coke bottle)

with a hinged top. Will she have a drink? No. But that's all right. The

taste of the Bourbon (Cream of Kentucky) and the smell of her fuse with

the brilliant Carolina fall and the sounds of the crowd and the hit of the

linesmen in a single synesthesia.

1941: Drinking mint juleps, famed Southern Bourbon drink, though in the

Deep South not really drunk much. In fact, they are drunk so seldom that

when, say, on Derby Day somebody gives a julep party, people drink them

like cocktails, forgetting that a good julep holds at least five ounces of

Bourbon. Men fall face-down unconscious, women wander in the woods

disconsolate and amnesiac, full of thoughts of Kahil Gibran and the

limberlost.

Would you believe the first mind julep I had I was sitting not on a columned

porth but in the Boo Snooker bar of the New Yorker Hotel with a Bellevue

nurse in 1941? The nurse, a nice upstate girl, head floor nurse, brisk,

swift, good-looking; Bellevue nurses, the best in the world and this one

the best of Bellevue, at least the best-looking. The julep, an atrocity,

a heavy syrupy Bourbon and water in a small glass clotted with ice. But

good!

How could two women be more different than the beautiful languid Carolina

girl and this swift handsome girl from Utica, best Dutch stock? One thing

was sure. Each has to be courted, loved, drunk with, with Bourbon. I

should have stuck with the Bourbon. We changed to gin fizzes because the

bartender said he came from New Orleans and could make good ones. He could

and did.

They were delicious. What I didn't know was that they were made with raw

egg albumen and I was allergic to it. What a lovely fine strapping smart

girl!

And thinking of being invited into her apartment where she lived alone and

of her offering to cook a little supper and of the many kisses and the

sweet love that already existed between us and was bound to grow apace,

when on the Brooklyn Bridge itself my upper lip began to swell and little

sparks of light flew past the corner of my eye like St. Elmo's fire. In

the space of thirty seconds my lip stuck out a full three-quarter inch,

like a shelf, like Mortimer Snerd. Not only was kissing out of the question

but my eyes swelled shut. I made it across the bridge, pulled over to the

curb, and fainted. Whereupon this noble nurse drove me back to Bellevue,

game me a shot, and put me to bed.

Anybody who monkeys around with gin and egg white deserves what he gets.

I should have stuck with Bourbon and have from that day to this.

POSTSCRIPT: Reader, just in case you don't want to knock it back straight

and would rather monkey around with perfectly good Bourbon, here's my

favorite recipe, "Cud'n Walker's Uncle Will's Favorite Mint Julep Receipt."

You need excellent Bourbon whiskey; rye or Scotch will not do. Put half

an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampen it with water.

Next, very quickly--and here is the trick in the procedure--cruch your

ice, actually powder it, preferably with a wooden mallet, so quickly that

it remains dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside

of the glass, cram the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand.

Finally, fill the glass, which apparently has no room left for anything

else, with Bourbon, the older the better, and grate a bit of nutmeg on the

top. The glass will frost immediately. Then settle back in your chair

for half an hour of cumulative bliss."

[Gillman]

Thanks Mark. Of Walker Percy one truly could say, he was a bourbonian ahead of his time. With Bernard De Voto, H.L. Mencken, Gerald Carson, Frederic Martin, Michael Jackson, Jim Butler and a few others he blazed the path towards recognition of bourbon as a world class spirit worthy of connoisseur and socio-historical interest.

Gary

[Gillman]

I take this opportunity to note that Walker was not a partisan of the speed-drinking method of consuming Mint Juleps.

Gary

[TNbourbon]

I take this opportunity to note that Walker was not a partisan of the speed-drinking method of consuming Mint Juleps.

Gary

Take that, Chuck!:duel:

[barturtle]

Take that, Chuck!:duel:

LOL.

:drink:

[cowdery]

Well, take this, fellows. The gentleman's name is Walker Percy, not Percy Walker.

He also put nutmeg in it. He is nothing if not idiosyncratic.

I've always loved that essay, especially the first line.

[Gillman]

Thanks for the correction and I've amended my post since it is just a technical mistake. In stating that Walker Percy was a slow sipper, I did have in mind the Cowderian view that juleps should be consumed quickly. I might point out though that my comment was intended to show Percy's disagreement, not my own. I incline to Chuck's view. In fact (and I have said this before here) I like to drink whiskey in any form fast. I find I "taste" it better that way. I like to have one or two fast drinks - then I stop (usually ).

Gary

[Nebraska]

There ya go...fixed:lol:

I found the grit and grist of real life in this appealing. Remembering chronologically events surrounding bourbon and savory parts of his past.

Mark/Nebraska

I wouldn't do this again (I did), but in honor of Gary, instead of a link I'm posting the whole damn thing.

an excerpt from "Bourbon by Walker Percy"

Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust.

1926: As a child watching my father in Birmingham, in the exurbs, living

next to a number-6 fairway of the New Country Club, him disdaining both

the bathtub gin and white lightening of the time, aging his own Bourbon in

a charcoal keg, on his hands and knees in the basement sucking on the

siphon, a matter of gravity requiring cheek pressed against the concrete

floor, the siphon getting going, the decanter ready, the first hot spurt

into his mouth not spat out.

1933: My uncle's sun parlour in the Mississippi Delta and toddies on a

Sunday afternoon, the prolonged and meditative tinkle of silver spoon

against crystal to dissolve the sugar; talk, tinkle, talk; the talk mostly

political: "Roosevelt is doing a good job; no, the son of a bitch is

betraying his class."

1934: Drinking at a Delta dance, the boys in bi-swing jackets and tab

collars, tough-talking and profane and also scared of the girls and

therefore safe in the men's room. Somebody passes around bootleg Bourbon

in a Coke bottle. It's awful. Tears start from eyes, faces turn red.

'Hot damn, that's good!'

1935: Drinking at a football game in college. UNC versus Duke. One has a

blind date. One is lucky. She is beautiful. Her clothes are the color of

the fall leaves and her face turns up like a flower. But what to SAY to

her, let alone what to do, and whether she is 'nice' or 'hot' -- a

distinction made in those days. But what to SAY? Take a drink, by now

from a proper concave hip flask (a long way from the Delta Coke bottle)

with a hinged top. Will she have a drink? No. But that's all right. The

taste of the Bourbon (Cream of Kentucky) and the smell of her fuse with

the brilliant Carolina fall and the sounds of the crowd and the hit of the

linesmen in a single synesthesia.

1941: Drinking mint juleps, famed Southern Bourbon drink, though in the

Deep South not really drunk much. In fact, they are drunk so seldom that

when, say, on Derby Day somebody gives a julep party, people drink them

like cocktails, forgetting that a good julep holds at least five ounces of

Bourbon. Men fall face-down unconscious, women wander in the woods

disconsolate and amnesiac, full of thoughts of Kahil Gibran and the

limberlost.

Would you believe the first mind julep I had I was sitting not on a columned

porth but in the Boo Snooker bar of the New Yorker Hotel with a Bellevue

nurse in 1941? The nurse, a nice upstate girl, head floor nurse, brisk,

swift, good-looking; Bellevue nurses, the best in the world and this one

the best of Bellevue, at least the best-looking. The julep, an atrocity,

a heavy syrupy Bourbon and water in a small glass clotted with ice. But

good!

How could two women be more different than the beautiful languid Carolina

girl and this swift handsome girl from Utica, best Dutch stock? One thing

was sure. Each has to be courted, loved, drunk with, with Bourbon. I

should have stuck with the Bourbon. We changed to gin fizzes because the

bartender said he came from New Orleans and could make good ones. He could

and did.

They were delicious. What I didn't know was that they were made with raw

egg albumen and I was allergic to it. What a lovely fine strapping smart

girl!

And thinking of being invited into her apartment where she lived alone and

of her offering to cook a little supper and of the many kisses and the

sweet love that already existed between us and was bound to grow apace,

when on the Brooklyn Bridge itself my upper lip began to swell and little

sparks of light flew past the corner of my eye like St. Elmo's fire. In

the space of thirty seconds my lip stuck out a full three-quarter inch,

like a shelf, like Mortimer Snerd. Not only was kissing out of the question

but my eyes swelled shut. I made it across the bridge, pulled over to the

curb, and fainted. Whereupon this noble nurse drove me back to Bellevue,

game me a shot, and put me to bed.

Anybody who monkeys around with gin and egg white deserves what he gets.

I should have stuck with Bourbon and have from that day to this.

POSTSCRIPT: Reader, just in case you don't want to knock it back straight

and would rather monkey around with perfectly good Bourbon, here's my

favorite recipe, "Cud'n Walker's Uncle Will's Favorite Mint Julep Receipt."

You need excellent Bourbon whiskey; rye or Scotch will not do. Put half

an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampen it with water.

Next, very quickly--and here is the trick in the procedure--cruch your

ice, actually powder it, preferably with a wooden mallet, so quickly that

it remains dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside

of the glass, cram the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand.

Finally, fill the glass, which apparently has no room left for anything

else, with Bourbon, the older the better, and grate a bit of nutmeg on the

top. The glass will frost immediately. Then settle back in your chair

for half an hour of cumulative bliss."