A Turkey of a Weekend

Hell’s Turkey is right!  It is impossible to underestimate the impact of the right, or WRONG whiskey on a guys weekend.  I learned the hard way a  few months ago when I was put in charge of buying the hooch for a guys weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho.

We stayed at my buddy’s condo, and we thought of everything.  We had great food, good movies, picked a great sports weekend as March Madness was in full swing, went to good bars with good beer on tap and played pool and shot darts.  I brought farm fresh eggs from my own chicken brood to make fresh omeletes.  To top it all off the weather was great, we went to specialty fly shops to do a little bit of stocking up on fly fishing supplies, good guy filler for the day.  We thought of everything, even down to what we were going to drink.  We had good microbrews, great wines for meal time, we had planned to go out to very good restaurants, and had purchased a great after dinner Liqueur.  Everything was perfect… except the whiskey.  It was the one glaring mistake, and it was all mine!

And they entrusted me to buy the Whiskey.  They knew that I know a little bit about good whiskey and thought that it made sense that I use my knowledge of the spirit to select the perfect Bourbon for our weekend.  So I took it on,  I started with a couple of bottles of great wine, I really did right by them as far as the wine for our weekend was concerned.  The perfect wine to have with a big, thick wild salmon filet.  Man that was good. I picked up a really good beer, I even got a good after dinner drink, then it happened.  So I went over to the shelf to select the whiskey.  I don’t know why after all I had already spent, but I think I had a fit of frugality.  I was thinking about the economy and not wanting to go overboard on the bill, so for some reason that still baffles me I put a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 into my basket.  Wild FLIPPING Turkey 101! What am I in college?  Did I want to make strong Whiskey Sours?  Did I think that these guys with very sophisticated palates were going to want Turkey Cokes?  No! I bought a cheap strong bourbon for sipping! YIKES!

In retrospect, what a horrible decision, and here is why.  After putting such care into the arrangements down to the menu, what do you think stood out as the bonehead decision of the weekend?  You guessed it, it was the underwhelming whiskey.  Looking back what did I save?…About ten bucks!  So to save ten bucks I compromised the entire weekend experience!  Oh it was a fun time, don’t get me wrong, but my good buddy Mike who graciously agreed to host this revelry in his condo, and has enough sense not to drink crappy whiskey only had the beer to drink in the evenings.  This gave us a serious shortage of beer! The ripple effects on my decision reverberated throughout the weekend.

So here is my mea culpa.  I am sorry for buying an average bourbon for our guys weekend!  Everyone else, don’t do it! For just about ten bucks more you can get a great bottle of Knob Creek or Ezra B.  Don’t make the same mistake I did, there are great bourbons out there for a great guys weekend.  Don’t skimp.

-Don