A Kinda Improved Whiskey Cocktail With An Experimental Sweetener
2 oz. Burnside Oregon Oaked Bourbon
2 bsp Lundberg Brown Rice Syrup
1 bsp Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
2 dashes Berg and Hauck Jerry Thomas Bitters
2 dashes Scrappy’s Orleans Bitters
1 dash Lucid Absinthe
Stir everything on ice and strain into a chilled rocks glass.
Looking through Warren Bobrow’s Apothecary Cocktail book looking for an aid to my stomach I noticed he had the Sazerac listed as a digestive aid. He stated that the herbs in Peychaud’s and the Wormwood in the Absinthe were there to help.
I figured I’d try an Improved Whiskey Cocktail in its stead as they’re quite similar and I’m not up to the ritual of the Sazerac. Also, as a sweetener, I wanted to try this woo-praised, fructose-free, rice syrup as a replacement for Simple Syrup and I wouldn’t want to further blaspheme the most classic cocktail.
I freely admit that I don’t quite follow the diet I set out for myself very well but one thing is certain; when I follow it I feel better. Since childhood I’ve been plagued with terrible acid reflux that has caused significant issues in my older age. Cutting certain foods out of my diet has helped this immensely, though I’ll be damned if I understand why certain foods like bread and beer bother me but I can down stuffed peppers and Whiskey all day long.
One thing also I’ve been looking after is just how much sugar I ingest. There is a lot of talk online about “natural” and “healthy” sugars as opposed to High Fructose Corn Syrup but as my father who has a gazillion years experience and a doctorate in the field likes to state “It’s fucking still all just sugar” (I did paraphrase that a little, though I did learn how to curse from him when helping him work on cars as a kid) . The saber rattling states that HFCS is harder to digest than other sugars or some such shit and people have blamed the corn sugar industry for just about every health problem out there. That being said, science does state that just about everyone would benefit from less sugar in their diets.
I’ve gotten myself to a point that the only overly sugary shit I consume is the shit-ton of peanut butter and lightly sweetened Cherrios along with the voluminous amounts of drinking which often has added sugar. The bulk of the rest of my sugar comes from fruit and an occasional veggie. It does still seem that when I do consume too much sweet stuff I end up much as if I’d been drinking beer and downing tons of bready burgers, burning my throat out at 3 in the morning vomiting stomach acid.
As many of the artificial sweeteners go, I’d rather just eat something without any sweetness at all then that disgusting crap. So, maybe a non-fructose sweetener would help and I got this over hyped, over marketed, overpriced goop. I think I’ve taken all of this space to say, meh, it’s not terrible, even if it did cloud up the drink a lot, but it wouldn’t be Sazerac worthy and I’d beat a motherfucker senseless who would try to pour it on my pancakes. But that’s just me.
