Nelson's Green Brier
The recipe has no secret . A powdered sugar cube under two tablespoons of water, a whiskey finger , a narrow touch , a lemon peel curl and an ice cube. This is how you make a good Old fashioned , the perhaps the world's most famous whiskey cocktail . And although its name sounds stale, there is a new wave of consumers who have rescued cocktail and liquor . And part of the blame is hers Don Draper.
Created by matthew weiner and set in the 1960s, the series Mad Men aired from 2007 to 2015 in seven seasons that garnered 16 Emmys and 5 Golden Globes.
Don Draper indulging in whiskey in Mad Men
The series reflected the daily life of an office of new york advertising in a time when being sexist or smoking and getting drunk in the office was tolerated. Draper drank Old Fashioned by buckets and the thirst for it spread to many spectators who later ordered it at the bar.
Many mixologists, the great specialists in the art of preparing cocktails, agree in giving the series this new boom in whiskey consumption , increasingly perceptible, which has resulted in the opening of distilleries with new products that should not be missed.
First of all, the uninitiated have to know that the whiskey (with “e” to differentiate it from Scotch whiskey or Scotch ) is made from a variety of grains, essentially corn, rye, barley and/or wheat, which are mixed in different combinations and fermented with water.
The states of Kentucky and Tennessee they hang the medal of having a natural limestone that produces hard water with a high mineral content that gives a unique flavor to its liquor. Although we call it whiskey not everything is the same because each distillery applies its own recipe with more or fewer types of grain and more or less years of barrel aging.
The distillery whose owner helped create the Old Fashioned recipe
The result is an overwhelming infinity of varieties and for all tastes. To this is added the bourbon, which has its own rules . It is the same whiskey but necessarily contains more than half of corn in its composition , this aged in oak barrels and produced , of course, in the United States.
This is how the so-called distillery prepares it James E Pepper . At first, the name may not sound like anything to you, but precisely this colonel and whiskey virtuoso is credited with the Original Old Fashioned Recipe.
Legend has it that Pepper devised, with a barman from his social club The Pendennis Club, in Louisville , the drink and took her to the lavish Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York , where it spread throughout the world. The galleries of this distillery now proudly display the recipe taken from the manual of the good waiter of the famous hotel . But if the Pepper distillery has survived to this day, it is almost miraculous because it is one of the longest-running brands in the United States.
The Pepper family entered the Whiskey industry in 1780 , in the midst of the American War of Independence. The business passed from generation to generation until reaching Colonel James who popularized it until his death, after an unfortunate slip on the icy sidewalks of New York. Despite opening a new factory in Lexington , the Dry Law it wiped out the production of almost all the distilleries in the country, and eventually the distillery was abandoned.
Pepper Distillery, in 1894
They had to pass over 50 years so that the businessman Amir Peay , will rescue not only the brand but also the way of making whiskey. The whole process is done in the factory and without automation yes, as before. Even his label is a replica of the one popularized by Colonel Pepper. From his small production, rye whiskey stands out..
In clear competition is Bulleit Distilling , whose rye whiskey It has been the best seller in the world for the last 6 consecutive years. It was Augustus Bulleit when, around 1830, he started making his own whiskey with two parts rye and the rest corn.
The business fluctuated, surviving prohibition as best it could and suffering through the whiskey depression of the 1980s, with the mass consumption of gin, vodka and tequila . With dwindling sales, it changed hands until its last owners opened a massive new ship in Shelbyville , Kentucky, in 2017.
Unlike its main rival, almost the entire distillery process it is automatic and depends on state-of-the-art technology . The product that distinguishes them from the rest of the brands is the whiskey of high concentration of rye and aged and is the one you have to try.
State-of-the-art technology for one of the best American whiskeys
We jumped out of Kentucky to the state of Tennessee where another veteran brand of whiskey has been rescued from oblivion. Is about Nelson's Green Brier , created by a family of German immigrants who lost their entire fortune (and part of their members) on their journey across the Atlantic in the mid-19th century. charles nelson started the business in town of Greenbrier and his wife, Louise , took over the reins after her death.
She thus became she the first and only woman to run a distillery in the United States . Whiskey production ran aground with dry law and the factory closed forever.
Time travel to 2006 when brothers Andy and Charlie Nelson They found by chance abandoned factory of their ancestors and they verified how the family anecdotes about the distillery were not only true but that it rose in the form of wood and bricks before their eyes.
The couple hatched until they could reopen the ship in 2012 and start producing the same whiskey that his great-grandfather served . Although there is a consensus in the elaboration of this liquor, the Nelsons have taken certain liberties as filter the liquid with carbon , something that adds a unique flavor. Among their variety of drinks, they produce the sweet Louisa's Liquor in honor of his pioneering great-grandmother.
Speaking of precursors, the new wave of whiskey has rescued another story that one day he will have his own movie in Hollywood . It all starts in the distillery of one of the most famous brands in the world, jack daniels . This is a name that even those who prefer another type of liquor know.
Much less popular is Nathan Nearest Green , the slave who taught Daniels to make whiskey and who became the country's first African-American chief distiller. The professional and friendly relationship of both, in times of great racism in the United States, it was a screaming secret until, finally, the brand decided to tell the world just a few years ago.
That's how he met Nearest writer fawn weaver that she just broke the whole story and couldn't resist raising his own whiskey empire. Uncle Nearest started last year with a small batch of three varieties in the hope of increasing production as the distillery expansion works are completed in Shelbyville, Tennessee . Weaver has also set foot in history because she has become the first African-American woman to lead a distillery.
Straight, on the rocks, or blended into your favorite cocktail,** this is the best American whiskey from America's hottest new distilleries**.
Nathan Green 1870