Food, Drink, and Friends

As I had hoped, Friday and Saturday were just fantastic.  Let me tell you about them.

Gus has a weird food hang-up.  At least I think it's weird.  Everybody that lives in the south knows that Waffle House is delicious.  Gus agrees, but he thinks it should only be eaten on cold, gloomy days.  I agree that it's better on those type of days, but I think it's pretty darn good on nice days as well.  Anyway, on Thursday, Gus decided we should think about Waffle House for lunch on Friday, but we had to wait for Friday to check out the weather before we would know for sure if it was okay.  So I was in suspense for 24 hours, trying to figure out what I would order, but not wanting to get too excited in case Friday dawned warm and sunny.

Fortunately for me, Friday was cold and rainy, and Waffle House was in the cards.

Gus, Evelyn, and Uyen at the Waffle House

So greasy, so good

My lunch was a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on Texas toast, and a waffle with coffee.  Delicious.  I wanted to get something else, maybe some grits, but I was expecting an even better dinner, so I didn't want to over-do it.  As it was, I was incapacitated until about 5:00.

Fortunately, I was able to find some room by the time my brother-in-law arrived around 7:00.  He found time to come for a visit last night, and I took him to my favorite local restaurant, Tribeca Tavern.

Jon at Tribeca

Tribeca has a lot of good food, but their hamburgers are incredible.  They grind the beef on-site every morning, so it's fresh enough that you can have them cook it as rare as you like.  It's also moist enough that even cooked medium, the meat is succulent and extremely flavorful.  I feel like restaurant hamburgers are usually a fallback menu item for people who don't like more exciting food, but at Tribeca, the burgers are definitely worth getting excited about.

An exciting hamburger

After dinner, Jon and I headed back to my place to have a few beers and hang out with Gus for a while.  I hadn't seen Jon since Thanksgiving, so it was nice to spend some time with him and have some fun.

Jon was gone by the time I got up this morning, but that was okay because this morning was my whiskey class with Tobi.

Tobi picked me up, and we arrived at Lucky 32 restaurant ten minutes early for the 11:00 class.  The class was run tag-team by Lucky 32's head chef, and a lady who is employed by Jim Beam as a regional whiskey ambassador.  It sounds like a pretty sweet job for somebody who enjoys bourbon.

Head Chef Jay Pierce making gumbo

The class included three courses of food, Cajun gumbo served with a cocktail called a sezerac made with rye whiskey and absinthe, a curried lamb over rice with the whiskey tasting, and a slice of bourbon chocolate pecan pie with coffee.

Whiskey and rye

American pie?

The whiskeys we tasted were all from Knob Creek, and included their 9-year old small batch straight bourbon, their rye whiskey, and their 120 proof single-barrel bourbon.

The food was really excellent, and I learned a lot about whiskey production and history, but the most valuable thing I took away was a much better understanding of how to correctly appreciate whiskey.

Here's a brief summary of what I learned:

• Use a glass that concentrates the vapors so you can appreciate the aroma.  This will help you understand what flavors to expect.  A rocks glass will let the aroma disperse and disappear.  If your venue does not have snifters, a wine glass will suffice.
• To appreciate the aroma, sniff with your mouth open.  If you don't, the alcohol will likely overwhelm your senses, masking the smells you're looking for.
• If you consume whiskey on the rocks, it will disperse the flavor far too much.
• It is appropriate to order your whiskey neat with a glass of ice water on the side and a plastic drinking straw.  You can use the straw to add small amounts of water to the whiskey until you achieve the flavor you want.
• It is correct to water down your whiskey until you remove the bite that you experience at the back of your tongue.  The bite will burn your palette and prevent you from experiencing the full flavor of the drink.  Adding 20% water to the whiskey is a good rule of thumb, but higher alcohol content requires more water.

This last rule was a revelation to my understanding of whiskey.  I have often felt when drinking whiskey neat, that the alcohol overwhelmed the experience, especially for drinks with higher alcohol content.  Once you understand how to properly water your drink though, you can make any whiskey palatable, and get down to the actual flavor of the product.  Apparently it is common for even master distillers to use water in this way.

Tobi and the class

So anyway, from a food and drink perspective, I just had about the best 36 hours I've had in years.  When we got home, Tobi gave me a 300-page whiskey reference book which she believes will help with our continued pursuit of whiskey appreciation.

More than you need to know about whiskey

After Tobi left, I needed a nap, so I slept for almost 4 hours.  Then I got up and wrote this post.  I have to say, I'm jealous of 2-days-ago Jason.  He knew he was about to have a good couple days, and I'm sad for right-now Jason because his fun is over, for now.  But I do want to thank Gus and Uyen and Jon and Tobi for making the last couple days so memorable.  Now I just have to figure out when I can do it again.