better the devil you know…

Last week I attended, virtually of course, a happy hour. It was the monthly Austin Food Bloggers Alliance get-together, and this time our host/sponsor was Devil’s River Whiskey.

Now, if you know me, you know I’m not really much of a drinker. And if you know me well, you know I won’t drink when I’m out if I have to drive myself home. But you also know I’m curious. So, when the opportunity to participate from home showed up I grabbed it.

I must say, the folks at Devil’s River were very generous! They shipped me (and each of us, of course) a variety of their products, each product tagged with informative cards – very helpful for a neophyte like me!

I had no idea that bourbon had a “nose”. I thought that was reserved for wine (about which I also know very little). I’m not sure that *my* nose could discern what they described (“slightly peppery with ripe fruit, vanilla and nutmeg”), but I certainly did like the flavor.

My fellow bloggers mostly made fancy cocktails involving ingredients I didn’t have on hand. Me, I had ginger ale, so bourbon and ginger it was! I used Canada Dry with lemon. The bourbon cut the sweetness of the ginger ale, the ginger ale lightened up the bourbon. A fine marriage, in my opinion.

I’m looking forward to using the rest of the samples in different ways. I’m pretty sure there will be bourbon brownies, possibly bourbon-flambéed bananas, perhaps a chicken dish… I’m really more about eating than drinking. But I feel I have a new world of possibilities opening up here. Many thanks to Shveta, aka atx-bites for setting this up, and thanks again to Devil’s River Whiskey for expanding my horizons!