As I approach my fiftieth birthday, I find my choice of liquor changing.

I don’t know if it’s actually changing or if I’m finally just coming to terms with preferences I’ve had all along. Who would’ve ever guessed I wanted juniper?

For this post, I’ll steer clear of the beer and wine sections, although I could talk your ear off (or write your eyes off, technically) about hoppiness and tanins. 

No, for this post, we’re sticking to the hooch aisle. 

Speaking of hooch, moonshine’s come a long way. We were looking for something to put in our eggnog last year, and discovered a butter pecan cordial tasted wonderful. Unfortunately, once we burned through it, we couldn’t find it again. But when Wife sent me to the liquor store to find a replacement, we found a delightful line of sipping creams from Sugarlands Distillery in Tennessee. It even comes in a mason jar. 

Since then, we’ve discovered a whole line of sipping creams from Sugarlands. Dark chocolate coffee and electric orange and peanut butter, oh my! No eggnog needed!

Technically, sipping cream isn’t moonshine, but Sugarlands has some of those, too. Their moonshine comes in about twenty different flavors. I’ve only tried the apple pie and hazelnut, but there’s a good ten more I’d be willing to try right now. I mean, maple bacon moonshine? That’s either divine or disgusting. No in between.

Unfortunately, sipping creams and moonshine are probably too varied and niche to make much of a blip on my alcohol choices. There aren’t a lot of bars you can go in and order moonshine. At least not in my stretch of the woods. 

Whiskey, meanwhile, is dropping down my power rankings. I figure if Deion Sanders can make (and publicly announce) power rankings for his own children, then whiskey, you and I are gonna palaver. 

Whiskey used to be one of my go-to’s. Jack and Coke is about as solid of an option as you can have in the “one alcohol/one mixer” department. Even better, now that I’m in my older ages and have to think about sugar content, a “Jack and Diet” works great as well. Jack and Coke Zero is even better.

Ooo, you know what else goes well with Jack Daniels? Sparkling water! Like, the flavored ones that have just a tiny bit of sweetness. Or, if you prefer, the super sweert ones, although if I’m venturing into New York Seltzer territory, my alcohol needs to venture into vodka territory. Whiskey has enough residual sweetness on its own.

Okay, so if I’ve just delved into countless wonderful whiskey concoctions, why is whiskey dropping down my power rankings? Because most whiskey drinks aren’t of the concoction variety.

Here’s the deal: I don’t like straight alcohol. I like mixed drinks. 

That being said, I like my cocktails to have the flavor, and the potency, of their base spirit. Don’t give me a damn half-shot masked by seventeen juices so I can pretend I’m drinking when I’m really not. I make a pretty mean margarita – it’s one of the main reasons my wife married me – and whenever people ask me my secret ingredient, I say tequila. They think I’m joking, but most margaritas bury the tequila. If done correctly, the bitterness of the tequila is a great counter to the tartness of the limes and sour mix.

My other secret ingredient is orange juice. Trust me. Put a splash of orange juice in your margarita.

What does this have to do with whiskey? Most whiskey drinks are ninety percent whiskey. No, adding two drops of bitters or a crushed cherry at the bottom of a drink doesn’t all of a sudden turn it into a mixed drink. 

One of the Camptathalon guys decided to replace the opening beer with an old fashioned toast. Isn’t that just whiskey, I asked. No, he assured me. It also has simple syrup and bitters and… and… a ginormous ice cube. He’d been working on his craft and claimed he’d found the perfect ratio. 

To me, it tasted just like whiskey. 

That ginormous ice cube made it worse because it didn’t melt fast enough. My usual m.o. for drinking whiskey is to order it on the rocks and let the ice melt. It might seem wuss, but James Bond’s drink of choice in the Ian Fleming books was a scotch and spring water, which is more or less what I have after the ice has melted. And if I drink my whiskey the same way James Bond does, I think I can hold onto my man card, thank you very much.

Obviously James Bond switched to a made-up drink when he moved from the pages to the screen. A vodka martini was not a thing, because vodka has no flavor, meaning all you get is the vermouth. And who the hell wants vermouth? The best martini instructions say, “show the glass a bottle of vermouth, then pour in the vodka.”

And yeah, I’m okay with vodka martinis, which you might note are pretty much all alcohol. Especially the martinis I drink, because I don’t like olive juice or anything overly salty. I’ll usually order it with an olive, then take it out about halfway through to avoid the last twenty percent tasting like brine.

While on the subject of martinis, let’s take a look at the first spirit rising up my power rankings: gin.

I swear I didn’t used to like gin. I mean, I never ordered it because I was neither a) seventy years old, nor b) a nineteenth century Cockney.

But it’s not like I never drank gin and tonics. They were blech. No thanks. Move along. 

Do you know what I’ve realized in the years since then? I don’t like tonic water. Similar to the olive juice in a martini, it overpowers and destroys whatever it’s paired with. I have a friend who will drink tonic water by itself, which I would only resort to in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I mean, seltzer water isn’t great, but at least it’s got some fizziness to it. Take away those bubbles and add the bitter undertaste of an industrial dump and you’ve got tonic water.

So recently I started wondering if maybe it wasn’t the gin I disliked, but the tonic. 

I also realized I was okay with juniper. It’s got that nice rosemary smell I enjoy in my food. Drinks, too, as there are some fine winter ales and lagers with a juniper bite. Far preferable to hops, if you ask me. So it stood to reason I wouldn’t mind a juniper-infused vodka.

The other thing that got me curious about gin was a Baha Men song. No, not “Who Let the Dogs Out.” Did you know they have an entirely other song? It’s called “Gin and Coconut Water.” The lyrics aren’t very intricate. Mainly “gin and coconut water, gin and coconut water.” Surprising considering how erudite they are when inquiring about responsibility of various canine’s locations.

After hearing the song a few hundred times, I thought, “I like coconut water.” And most liquid refreshments can be improved about with a shot of hooch. Fruit punch? Meh. Hurricane? Sure!

I looked up the recipe and discovered that a gin and coconut water also includes a lime. But it would be really weird to call a drink “gin and coconut water and lime.” Still, Tom Cruise’s character in Cocktail approves of the proper nomenclature. If the drink was called a Baha Men, I never would’ve looked up how to make it.

So I made one. It wasn’t the greatest, but it had potential. So like any good lush… I mean, scientist… I tinkered with the ratio and order of ingredients. After a few tries, I realized that half booze and half mixer (plus a half-lime), stirred pretty ferociously, created a refreshing little drink.

Strangely enough, the last line of the “Gin and Coconut Water” song refrain is “I cannot get it in America.” Um… we have gin. We have coconut water. Not sure why the Baha Men would have trouble getting it here. Maybe bars don’t carry coconut water?

I haven’t really branched out into other gin drinks, but I could certainly see a limited number of other mixers that would go well with juniper. Not as omni-useful as vodka, perhaps, but I think with certain flavors, it might be superior to vodka. 

The other alcohol finding its way to my gullet (and liver) more often is rum.

As with gin, my earlier distaste for rum came not from the booze itself, but from its most common mixed drink. Rum and Cokes are disgusting.

As a molasses drink, rum is effectively made from syrup. Syrup is also the primary flavor and consistency of cola. Putting the two together ain’t the kinda double down like when you’ve got an eleven against a dealer’s six. More like you doubled down on a five with the dealer’s showing an ace. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like sweet drinks, but there’s something about rum and Coke together that puts it into maple syrup territory. Might be fine to put a rum and coke on pancakes, but I don’t want to guzzle it. It reminds me of the caramel drinks at Starbucks, which don’t taste like caramel. 

Yes, I know caramel is probably the most popular flavor at Starbucks. Rum and Cokes are popular, too. Shit, throw IPAs in there, as well. I’m not here to explain why everyone else is wrong, just to explain why I spent the last twenty years of my life assuming I didn’t like rum. 

Except for the caramel coffees. You’re all wrong on that. It tastes nothing like caramel. 

Unlike gin, I never completely avoided rum drinks. That would be almost impossible. Can’t be a Jimmy Buffett fan or take a cruise without a steady supply of mai tais, daiquiris, and pina coladas. If you’ve been reading me for a while you’ll know I’d damn near eat dog shit if it was coconut flavored. Perhaps there’s a theme in that both of my new alcohols can be paired with coconut, although coconut water doesn’t really taste much like coconut. Still, if whiskey is looking to make a comeback in the next power rankings, it knows who it needs to be hanging out with.

The reason I never equated pina coladas and daiquiris with an enjoyment of rum was because I assumed they just masked the rum. Most establishments equate boat drinks with weak drinks. Not sure how that argument held water with mai tais, but after a few mai tais, I’m not one to quibble about minor inconsistencies in my alcohol choice. 

A bar in Hawaii started my course correction on rum. They offered a floater of dark rum on top of their pina coladas during half hour. I doubted I would like it, but with the prices they were charging for those typically weak boat drinks, I took whatever booze I could get. 

Similar to tequila in margaritas, the additional rum actually complemented the drink, almost as if, follow me here, a pina colada… tastes better… with rum. I know, I know. Shocking! Every cruise ship I’ve ever been on has lied to me! 

I’m not quite as trepidatious about branching out on rum as I am with gin. There aren’t many flavor profiles that makes me think “this really needs more juniper.” But plenty are improved by rum. The only one that isn’t is Coke.

I’m learning about when it should be light rum and when it should be dark rum. Never spiced rum, though. Captain Morgan and Coca-Cola might be equally to blame for my early dislike of rum. 

The last thing I need to branch out into is higher end gins and rums. There’s an old adage that you should only use well drinks for cocktails or else you’re missing out on the quality. I call bullshit. You’ll note I said Jack and Coke, not whiskey and Coke. Because Jack tastes better with Coke than, say, Jim Beam or Wild Turkey or Southern Comfort. Granted, I’m not going to mix Whistle Pig or Johnny Blue with Coke, but if the base liquor has a better flavor, the cocktail benefits. 

And people who sip tequila are just insane. It’s one of the top indicators of sociopathy, right up there with using a magnifying glass on ants in one’s youth. I bet the Night Stalker sipped tequila. 

Hannibal Lecter seemed like an Old Fashioned kinda guy. 

(Yes, I used one real killer and another fictional.)

I suppose I should put a recipe at the end of this post. Although if it’s like any of the other recipe posts I see on other people’s website, I’m about 5,000 words short of the introduction.

Here ya go:

Gin n’ Juice:
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. (or more) Juice (of your choice)
Ice.

Instructions: 
1. Mix ingredients.
2. Lay back.
3. With your mind on your money and your money on your mind.