The Drunken Tailgate

Personalize Your Cornhole Board

If you don’t have the artistic skills to paint a design on your cornhole board by hand, there’s another option for you. You can head over to Kinko’s or another print shop and get a poster printed and laminated. Then nail or glue the laminated poster to your cornhole board and cut out the hole. You end up with a sharp looking board that can have mud, water, or spilled beer wiped off of it much easier than wood.

Tailgating Drinks: Bourbon Manhattan

I’m currently reading Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis, which is just a magnificent book covering all aspects of alcohol. I suggest you pick it up tomorrow… like before noon. His recipe for a Whiskey Manhattan tickled my bourbon soaked fancy. For those who don’t usually drink bourbon straight it serves as a change up to using Coke or Ginger Ale as a mixer. For those who normally drink straight bourbon, it works a little sugary taste into a long day of tailgating. And luckily it’s not a hassle to make at a tailgate, especially if you have a traveling bar. I’ve modified Kingley’s take slightly to work in this context:

The (Whiskey) Manhattan

Ingredients:
2oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
0.5oz Noilly Prat Sweet Vermouth
1 dash of Angostura bitters
1 maraschino cherry
Ice Cubes

Stir the fluid together very hard before adding the ice and fruit. Whatever the pundits may say, this in practice the not very energetic man’s Old-Fashioned, and is an excellent drink, though never, I think, as good as a properly made Old-Fashioned. And you really have to use bourbon (instead of the traditional rye whiskey).

Drunken Tailgate thoughts:

- Sweet Vermouth comes in bottles with red labels. Dry Vermouth comes in green labels. Sometimes they are not marked very well. That being said, it’s good to keep a bottle of dry and sweet vermouth in your bar.

- Angostura bitters is one of those things that looks ridiculous on a drink recipe, but you can get a bottle for a couple of bucks and it will last you a decade.

- Same goes for Maraschino cherries. Just keep them in the fridge and you should be able to use them over the course of a year if you enjoy cocktails

Tailgating Vacation: Kentucky Bourbon Trail

If you’re attending a road football game at the University of Kentucky (Lexington) or Louisville you should definitely work a bourbon distillery tour into your plans for the weekend. It’s also possible that you could work this into Cincinnati, Western Kentucky, or Bowling Green games. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail includes Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Woodford Reserve, and Wild Turkey in the general Lexington area. Tom Moore, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, and Heaven Hill would be closer to Louisville. Hitting up a Friday tour is the perfect way to kick off a football weekend. Even if you’re not a big fan of drinking bourbon, the distillery tours are interesting because of the complexities and magnitude of the process.

I just visited the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. It’s about 30 minutes from Lexington and an hour from Louisville. This is the longest continuously operating distillery in the US. They were one of four distilleries that were allowed to continue producing bourbon during prohibition for medicinal purposes. The distillery has had several owners and has been previously known as the George T. Stagg Distillery. In 1999 it was renamed Buffalo Trace and they started producing bourbon under their own name. Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon is 90 proof (more than most) and is aged for 9 years. Theoretically it’s on the same basic level as Wild Turkey, Maker’s Mark, etc. Buffalo Trace has won a variety of awards like the Double Gold at the 2009 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. In the last couple of years I’ve been more of a Scotch drinker, but I drank Buffalo Trace for three straight days and would never turn it down. It seems to have a smoother taste than the bourbons I’ve had recently like Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. At the normal prices, it’s also an amazing value.

In addition to Buffalo Trace, the distillery creates, ages, and bottles an insane number of other bourbon brands. The list includes Van Winkle, Blanton’s, W.L. Weller, Elmer T. Lee, George T. Stagg, Rock Hill Farms, Eagle Rare, and more. These run the gamut of spending amounts. Buffalo Trace is in the $20 range, Blanton’s is in the $50’s, and Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old Family Reserve is upwards of $200. If you get the chance look for these at your local liquor store. And by all means, if you get the chance, visit Buffalo Trace or another bourbon distillery during your weekend tailgating vacation.

The Smell of Fall

During the winter I frequently enjoy a nice scotch to close out an evening. It’s an indoor drink that provides the proper warmth (physically and emotionally). As the weather improves I usually kick off the spring drinking season with Gin Weekend. Then eventually gracing the sweltering heat of summer with tequila. But as September comes and brings a nip to the air, it’s time again to meet bourbon’s sweet embrace. If you grew up going to football games in the South then you recognized the smell of bourbon before you even knew what liquor was. I remember being completely confused as to why people were putting the end of their spirit shakers in their souvenir cokes and mixing them. Even for the biggest beer drinker, bourbon become a necessity during tailgating season. It’s a lot easier to sneak a couple of miniatures into the game than trying to conceal a six pack of cold ones.

With all of these autumn induced feelings about bourbon swirling through my head, it’s with great pleasure that I’ll be attending the Buffalo Trace Distillery’s White Dog Days Celebration this weekend, Oct 15-17th, in Frankfort and Lexington, Kentucky. On Friday, Buffalo Trace is sponsoring the Franklin County Stakes race at Keeneland race track in Lexington. On Saturday, Buffalo Trace is opening their distillery in Franklin up for a day of music, tours, Bourbon Boot camp, and corn hole and barrel rolling contests.

As every avid drinker is advised to slow their brown liquor roll during summer, so does Buffalo Trace, who does not distill during the summer. White Dog Days is the kickoff to the new distillation season. White Dog itself is the name Buffalo Trace has given to the clear distillate that is made before it’s placed in barrels for aging to create bourbon. They have decided to bottle a small batch of White Dog, which can be purchased from their gift shop. One should note that White Dog is “not a sipping drink” since it’s essentially moonshine. So yes, I’m going to Kentucky this weekend to drink bourbon, moonshine, and bet on the ponies. If you are anywhere within driving distance you should take part in the festivities. If you can’t make it by, look up the closest retailer of Buffalo Trace Bourbon to you and give it a try tailgating this weekend.

Whisky Flavored Condoms

I’ve seen niche products before, but Scotch flavored condoms may have set a new benchmark. I mean, what are the odds that these will ever be needed.

White Guy Dance Off: Florida vs. Penn State

I especially like the guy who’s randomly chugging Jim Beam from the bottle.

The old guy doing the mosh pit/upside down beer chug at the end is kinda impressive. I don’t know how you even talk someone into that.

Hop Skip and Go Naked Punch Recipe

Well I’d have to say that the recipe for Hop Skip and Go Naked might just be the only manly punch I’ve ever come across. If it has beer and whiskey that’s acceptable to drink right? Seems like a good drink alternative for an early morning tailgate or a sweltering 90° afternoon in Aug/September.

Ingredients:

Six 12-oz. cans of beer
1 pint of Canadian whiskey
One 12-oz. can of frozen lemonade concentrate
2 liters of lemon-lime soda

Preparation:

1. In a gallon container add beer, whiskey and frozen lemonade (and optional lemon-lime soda).
2. Stir and serve over ice.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

The Delightful Delicacy brings us a recipe for Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. Hopefully you have a wife or girlfriend at your tailgate that you can convince to make these. Thanks to The Grinder for the heads up and funny commentary on Notre Dame:

“Now, obviously, the violent history of the Irish Republican Army isn’t something to joke about. I was at a college bar at Notre Dame the first time I saw a shot of Baileys and Jameson get plunked into a pint of Guinness, which was then sucked down by an Irish-studies student. At the time, I wondered if his heartbreak over the sad history of Northern Ireland was what drove him to chug that spiked pint in one gulp, but I later learned that (a) the drink will curdle if you don’t consume it quickly, and (b) that dude was totally insensitive.”

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
1 cup Guinness
1 stick, plus 1 tbs unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Cupcake Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350; line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Combine the Guinness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan, and heat to melt the butter.
3. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
4. In a bowl, whisk the sour cream and the eggs and vanilla, then add to the beer mixture.
5. Sift together the flour and baking soda, and fold in the batter.
6. Pour into muffin molds and bake or 25 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, remove from muffin tin, and cool completely on a rack.

Frosting Ingredients:
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
Bailey’s Irish Cream
Jameson Irish Whiskey

Frosting Directions:
1. Put the stick of room-temperature butter in a large mixing bowl and bet at medium-to-high speed for a few minutes.
2. Add a few short glugs of Bailey’s and a tiny bit of Jameson, and mix at low speed.
3. Gradually spoon confectioners’ sugar into the bowl, mixing on low speed.