Monday, June 23, 2003
DRINK DU JOUR: Maker's Mark and Vernors. I'm not a hard-liquor guy, apart from my college fascination with cognac, and certainly not a bourbon guy, but I recently succumbed to the advertising genius behind Maker's Mark and decided this was something I needed to try. I liked it as much as I like any brown hard liquor (which is to say, not all that much), but it got me to thinking about appropriate mixers. Vernors occurred to me, though I wasn't the first. I finally tried it (albeit with Diet Vernors), and my suspicions were confirmed: Mmm-mmm-good. Just as it's not clear where the gin ends and the tonic begins, the barrel-aged golden wonderfulness of Vernors is a perfect foil for the barrel-aged golden Maker's Mark. Vernors is a Detroit institution. It's ginger ale, but not the ginger ale you probably know. If you've had "ginger beer," that's more like it: not "pale dry," but crisp and sharp and, for the uninitiated, cough-inducing.
As good as it is with Maker's Mark, Vernors is even better with vanilla ice cream. (In Detroit they call that a Boston cooler, though I don't think the term is at all familiar to Bostonians.)
Runner-up drink du jour: Beer with tomato juice. "Red beer," the woman at the blackjack table at the Plaza casino in downtown Las Vegas called it, but I had had it before and whatever you call it, it's pretty darn good.
As good as it is with Maker's Mark, Vernors is even better with vanilla ice cream. (In Detroit they call that a Boston cooler, though I don't think the term is at all familiar to Bostonians.)
Runner-up drink du jour: Beer with tomato juice. "Red beer," the woman at the blackjack table at the Plaza casino in downtown Las Vegas called it, but I had had it before and whatever you call it, it's pretty darn good.
