Max Riffner

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Know How to Drink Scotch?

Well, the snow is finally flying here in Omaha, which means it is time to break out the scotch. I’ll be in a scotch submission hold from here until February. It is my booze pattern, and I have several of them. With the whiskeys, I drink bourbon in the late spring on through late summer, and then Irish whiskey in the fall and early spring. Scotch is reserved for winter for some reason. There is no rational reason for this pattern. If I had to guess, it is because most people buy me a bottle of scotch for the holidays.

Now, if you don’t drink scotch, you are missing out on an essential part of being human, in my opinion. Do you want to learn? It is deceptively easy to acquire a taste for the stuff. I know, I know – everyone has a tale of smelling their grandfather’s breath or taking a quick sip out of an adult’s glass and freaking out. The point is, I don’t think anyone starts out in their early 20s drinking scotch.

Here is how I learned how to drink it, which I actually learned from my grandfather because this is how an older gentleman taught him how to drink it. I was tired of drinking gin (gin and tonics being my drink of choice), and my grandfather suggested that I have some of his scotch. Remembering the past times where I’ve tasted it and my whole body had rejected the stuff with every fiber of my being, I thought it would be unwise. He said that he was once the same way and here is how you come into the scotch fold:

1. Buy a bottle of scotch. Make sure it is blended. Blended will be cheaper. Stay away from the bottom shelf at the liquor store – a few brands you’ll want to look for are J&B, Dewars, Famous Grouse or Johnnie Walker. Cutty Sark and Chivas Regal are good also, I’m told. Blended scotch is malt whiskey (scotch) blended with grain whiskey (traditional whiskey), so the taste is not as harsh as a single malt scotch. We have to build up to those.
2. Grab a small glass with a couple of ice cubes in it and fill about a thumbs worth of scotch in the glass, then fill the rest of the glass with water.
3. Drink up.
4. The next night, add a bit more scotch and a bit less water.
5. Continue every night by adding a bit more scotch and a bit less water. After a month, you should be able to drink all scotch and no water on the rocks (or ice for the morons out there).
6. Now, you are a scotch drinker. Congratulations, it wasn’t so bad, was it? Now, take out the ice cubes – you still aren’t ready for a single malt yet.
7. Once you can drink blended scotch with no water or ice cubes, you can try a single malt. Single malts are a whole new world (by the way, you can drink your scotch with a water chaser, but you don’t want to mix the two together – if you are caught drinking a single malt with water on the rocks you are dead to me).
8. Laugh at all the people who smell your drink and ask how you could possibly drink such a thing. You are now a member of the drinking elite, a person of refined tastes. You’ll never want to drink anything else again.
   • Bonus if you are a woman. Scotch drinking women are rare these days (although still seen in bowling alleys).

Knowing how to drink scotch has in all honesty helped me in business and bonding with my father-in-law, both important things as a young man coming up in the world. It is a good drink with friends also; Ben and I are already talking about how we need to go have a single malt here soon.

Cost of this lesson is a bottle of scotch, of course. Pay up suckas.

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