Fun With Brown Sugar Bourbon

Well hello everybody, it is Friday, 4 o'clock Pacific time, that means it's time for drinking with Steve. I've been waiting for this for a while, it's been an unusually interesting day, a very, very interesting week, and you know there's something that's really been weighing really heavily on me for this week, and it should, the Seahawks actually reassigned Colin Kaepernick or not. Now there's pros and cons to this thing, right.

Kaepernick, great former quarterback, I used to call him a one-trick pony, right, legs like a gazelle, good arm, no touch, but could throw the ball a mile, but I called him one-trick pony, who's like a Well, won read and done, guy right, because he had his play, he rolled out, he'd make his one read, and if that wasn't there he'd just take off, right, and that was kind of the strength of his game and he's such a good athlete, get away with it, right, but he's been out of the league.

Well, so in that play style actually is reminiscent of the way Wilson used to play. Now I'd say Wilson's a much smarter quarterback, he goes through his reads, his progressions way better and Kaepernick ever did, and the dude's got a stronger arm, right, and he's way more accurate than Kaepernick ever was, right. So you know he, Kaepernick, would fit okay into this in the system, right, the problem with, with Kaepernick, though, is that people forget he's been out of the league for three years as a quarterback, that's really hard. Being gone, being out a league for one year at any position is hard, being an elite for three years as a quarterback is super hard to come back from. Now in this weird shortened season that we're gonna end up having, I just don't see, I just cannot see him coming in and learning the playbook in time, I just really can't, right. There's no way.

Geno Smith is a safe choice, Geno Smith knows a playbook, he's an adequate backup for our Wilson, and Lord forbid we ever need to use the, the guy, right, cuz Wilson's, you know, dependable as a day, as long, I'm, Wilson's Only missed one play is in his entire pro career, one play, right. And then we got that kid out of WSU, and then I apologize to all of my Cougar fans who are watching, I can't remember his name, but I'm actually pretty bullish on that kid, right, he's got some ability, you've got some moxie, he needs to polish, and I would really like to see them take him, put him on the the practice squad, because remember next year all pro teams get 12 practice

players, not eight, so there's a really good chance he'll be on the practice squad, and I'd like to see him develop him. Now the, the one thing about taking Kaepernick on is if he does work out, he's, he is potentially an upgrade over Geno Smith, but more than that, dude, he's trade bait, right, I mean Colin Kaepernick, If he has the moxie to still started in this league, and he's probably better than at least the top, or the bottom five or six QB reason league, right, that trade value goes way up, and so that's the one part of me that's looking at the Hawks like going, hey man, maybe, maybe they should bring Kaepernick in, and not for some stupid PR stunt, not because the Seahawks are the altruistic team in the league, and we live in the great, you know, liberal Northwest, that's not it at all, for freaking trade capital, baby. So I'm

kind of torn, kind of torn, right. Also this week, for those of you that are not in the know, this is the 40th anniversary of Rush Permanent Waves album, I would say probably my third favorite Rush album, third or fourth, obviously, Moving Pictures is number one, 2112 I think is number two, and then I vastly between Permanent Waves and, you know, Fly by Night, that's so three and four right there. But fortieth anniversary, they've released a special remix version of the album which sounds like freaking awesome, so if you're a Rush fan you

should go out and pick that bad boy up, and God bless Neil Peart, you know, may he rest in peace, the best drummer I think ever to hit the skins. So now that we've got the preliminary out of the way, today is all about Heritage Distilleries Brown Sugar Bourbon. I should be get paid for this. Now the funny thing about this is BSB is not Something that, hey, I really enjoy, um, I usually I tend to use a lot of flavor bourbons in lieu of something like

vermouth or maybe simple syrups in some drinks, just because I like to taste a bourbon and anything to make a tastier kind of booze your drink, I'm all about it, right. So I tend to use flavor bourbons when I mix with things, remember we made the Manhattans, we had the peach Manhattan, and then you know the Chocolate Manhattan and so, so I do that, but I typically don't, you know, drink flavor bourbons, a lot of people like just BSB on the rocks, right, I'm not one of them.

And I find it hard with that taste, that brown sugar taste, because it's so sweet, I find it hard to find a good drink to mix it with. I mix it with, so I was doing a bunch of research, and this was back in the fall, so this is like last September or so, because a buddy of mine gave me a bottle of BSB, and I'm like, going, well, I've got it, let's figure out what to do with this, right, and so I started kind of crafting up some interesting cocktails. I went to the BSB site, little of research there, and saw what they had and ended up

taking some of their base recipes and modifying a little bit, and the internet turning up amazing. I've made both of these drinks, we're gonna make two drinks today, one is called the Harvest Moon, one called the Spiced Orange, just by the names, you can kind of tell they sound more like fall drinks. When we start putting all the ingredients into them, you'll see exactly why, right, a lot of kind of all harvest type things, we're gonna put in a cranberry, orange, apple, in some case cinnamon, cloves, right, and so it's it ends up being a very kind of a fall flavor, but they're good any time of year, right, so it wasn't real big fan of BSB but in these drinks I'm telling you it's a must, right, they do make some other brown sugar flavored bourbons out there,

but I haven't found anything that I like nearly as much as its BSB. Okay, so with that, let's go ahead and make the first drink, which is a Harvest Moon, so shaker shaker, we have our ice, let's start with the pour. If you have not had BSB before, you should always try it, all right, so I'm going to try a little bit right now, I have had this before, you're gonna try a little bit, it tastes just like brown sugar, right, funny thing about it is like like you can smell it, it smells like candy and it tastes like it. No, I will say, they actually make a 101 proof BSB that's actually a pretty good slobberknocker.

It still maintains of Sweden's, obviously it's got a much more powerful, longer tail than this stuff, and in a punch I think I might use the 101 instead of this, but let's start with this. We're going to have two ounces of BSB. Okay, let's start here, yeah, two ounces, that, and I'm just pouring stuff straight into my shaker, I haven't put the ice in yet, okay, we're gonna use orange bitters for this, okay, like put a couple dashes orange bitters in there, I

was a lazy ass this week, I'll full-on admit it, I didn't go to the store, I need limes and lemons, and I didn't do it this week, I apologize, back, so I'm using a just lemon juice out of a, out of a squeezy thing here, so I do apologize, but I'm gonna use a half an ounce of lemon juice, okay, now we need some cranberry juice.

Ocean's breath from the ocean, if brave, on you use a half an ounce of ocean spray, by the way, if you guys have never been to Washington coast and seem like the cranberry bogs, it's actually kind of cool. Okay, so there we go, got a half ounce of that, and now we're gonna add some ice to our shaker, shaker meet ice,

plenty of ice in there, okay, ice in shaker for this bad boy. Out, if I had a, there's probably really, you know, if you want to be foofy, Bad's probably in a martini glass, but I got my highball glasses handy. Now if you want to be really cool about this, we want to try something a little bit different, what I would do is I would take some kind of grater to shave nutmeg and put that in here, mmm, really good.

So this is the Harvest Moon, this is to ounces BSB, a couple dashes of orange bitters, half an ounce of lemon juice, 1/2 ounce of cranberry juice, shaker, shaky-shaky. If you've got nutmeg, some grated nutmeg, put it in here, and it's perfect. Now you can kind of get the flavor for, like, why I think this is the fall drink. I'll boil and it's, it's a nice smooth sip or two, it tastes like something, I mean, could have been a breakfast, regretting me, honestly, but you know, and this is, this is more of a, there's too much booze in here to be a breakfast drink, that's probably the wrong thing to say, there's never enough booze in a breakfast drink, but this is super good.

The thing that I like about this is that it actually lends itself really well to a punch, right, and if you make this in a punch, I've made it in a punch and I've done it two different ways, I've done it with ice and the punch bowl, I've also done it mold, and it turns out really super good, right, and if you do it Mold, throwing maybe some fresh cranberries and some fresh, a couple fresh apples in there, and it turns out really super good, so it works either way.

And the, the only thing that's kind of weird when you make a big punch out of it is the bitters, the orange bitters, because you have to kind of feel that one, right? Because it's two parts of BSB, a half a part of lemon juice, 1/2 a part of cranberry juice, right, and then it's a couple dashes of orange bitters. Now, a dash in my mind is really a bar spoon, right, so that's probably, way, that's probably about a teaspoon. Okay. So if you really want to get the measurements right, probably a couple teaspoons of orange bitters for every, you know, one of these you make. So you guys can do the math and figure out how much orange bitters we're going, like a punch, right. Oh, that's pretty good. Let's finish this one. I move on to the next one, shall we? Oh, okay, mm-hmm, the next one, I think I like the next one even better.

It's a spiced orange, it's, even kind of a more fall-like to me, right? So I'm gonna, used to say nice, because I'm a lazy ass and I forgot to bring my dumper up here, so we're going to start this drink again. This is a spiced orange. How many ounces of booze we put in every drink we start with, At least, right, so once again, two ounces BSB, there we go, put that shaker.

We're gonna put one a half ounces of unfiltered apple juice in this, okay, one and a half ounces of unfiltered apple juice, okay. We're going to put a half of an ounce of OJ, some orange juice, in there, okay, so let's get a half an ounce of orange juice, there we go.

Put that in there. Now here's something that's interesting, well, can't know we had too far, we're gonna use a dash of lemon juice, right, and every time you see In a recipe for, wonder how much that is, it's kind of a dash, but really think bar spoon, think about a teaspoon or so. Okay, whoops, gotta clean that up a little Bit, the lemon juice in there, right. Okay, now the interesting thing we're gonna put in here in the shaker, okay, if we're gonna put a whole clove in there, and trust me, it makes a difference. So take a clove, dump it in the shaker, okay.

I'm gonna put a little bit more ice in here, never have enough ice. I'm making a mess on my bar right now, so I'm gonna grab my bar rag, just a second, kind of clean that off a little bit. I'm knocking stuff off all over the place, okay, and shake. Again, this popcorn, I like both these drinks, is super good. The interesting thing about this, we don't have any bitters in this one, what we do have, though, is a whole clove, okay, which is kind of interesting. Take that out, or that bad boy in there. Now we're gonna

take an orange slice, you want to be fancy, do an actual orange wheel. I'm gonna take an apple slice, apple, and if you're feeling really randy, a cinnamon stick, okay. Now this is the ultimate fall drink, again, you could make this in a punch as well, right.

So again, two ounces of BSB, one and a half ounces of unfiltered apple juice, 1/2 an ounce of orange juice, dash of lemon, which is really a bar spoon, so about a teaspoon, a little less maybe, and a whole clove, right, so two parts BSB, one and a half parts apple juice, half a part of orange juice, dash of lemon, so about a teaspoon and a whole clove makes one drink, so you can extrapolate that if you want to make a punch. Oh my god, so it's funny, I drink this drink and I think about, it's a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, that's where this drink puts my mind, about pillow-fish. So now this week, when

I told you guys what we were gonna make, my niece Hayley Nikkola pinged me and said, hey uncle Steve, use BSB, take out the apple juice and use champagne. She's like, it's her thing, if their gig is her drink. I've never had it before, I haven't tried it, she says it's great. In the spiced orange, should we try it?

Yeah, about four shots, el, what's too much from champagne, let's go down when a shop. Oh man, this is so good. Just reminds me of tailgates in the fall, man, I'm serious, your spice, going make a like a cooler out of it, go to your freaking Auburn game, your Georgia game, your Washington game, your wisely a game, wherever you're from, deep, this is the, this is the bomb, works for hockey too, and only it worked for basketball, but all those other real sports, it work for, hell, it even worked for lacrosse, and I guess it worked for, you know, Little League Soccer, in the fall, I work for that too. So got the Harvest Moon, got the spiced orange, we're gonna try a variant.

That I've never tried before, because I left my niece that much, it's gonna be a little different, so I think with this one, we're gonna mix this one by him. We're not going to shake it. I think I want to try this one out a little bit, so highball glass. We'll start like everything else with two ounces of BSB, highball glass, okay.

I'm not going to put unfiltered apple juice in here, I think I'm going to try building this as we go, so let's start with the BSB and add the ice, so highball glasses is just straight BSB, and know what I'm going to do, I'm going to take my knees, my knees, Hailey's advice, I'm going to add champagne straight, this cuz I think this is what she drinks, just straight up champagne and BSB, to me sounds totally nasty, but let's try this. Do you think I got the bar spoon handy?

Kailas, this little shot here, hmm, interesting, not good, but let's add some other ingredients, so let's add back in, let's add that half of an ounce of orange juice, my roommate, I may be making a monster for you guys right now, I'm gonna add a little dash of lemon, okay.

Okay, let me grab a cinnamon stick, mister, this bad boy with your cinnamon stick and slop them a little bit, that's better. So, Haley, I'm not sold on your champagne variant, but it's not bad, some of you out there might, might like it. Essentially what this is, it's the spiced orange, we don't have any of the unfiltered apple juice in there, what we do have is two ounces of ESB, half ounce of the orange juice, dash of the lemon juice, we've got the cinnamon stick, and then we kind of fill with champagne, and we will call this Haley's spiced orange, I guess, huh, it's not bad, he's

kind of growing on me, the bubbliness, I'm not a big champagne fan, like that French 75 was the first drink I really liked with champagne in it, this isn't bad, it's not too bad, it's kind of growing on me a little bit, the orange juice and the lemon juice, so I'll let strick acid kind of neutralizes the bubbly a little bit from the champagne, so that makes things better for me. I like that sweetness of the BSB in here, and I think this cinnamon stick actually kind of, you know, adds a little bit of spice to it that it needs, so the Haley Nicollet variant, so we'll call this a Haley Nicholas spice orange, that's so bad, okay, so what we learned today, we

learned today that heritage is filling located in Gig Harbor and several other locations, but they got their start in Gig Harbor, my buddy Chris wagon blasts home stomping ground, it's where they started, they make probably the most awarded flavored bourbon out there, okay, brown sugar bourbon, super sweet, and so you kind of have to be careful how you use it. But we're learning how to make, well, three drinks today, we're going to make the Harvest Moon, the Harvest Moon is two parts of brown sugar bourbon, a half a

part of lemon juice, 1/2 a part of cranberry juice, a couple dashes of orange bitters, shaky shaky shaky, and then if you're feeling super Randy, grated nutmeg, okay, and that thing is not beautiful, like that Harvest Moon, and then the spiced orange, I think, is even more, has even more fall tastes in it, right, because you've got two parts of BSB, you've got one and a half parts of unfiltered apple juice, you've got a half part of orange juice, you've got a dash

of lemon, and you've got whole clove in there, right, and then a cinnamon stick, an orange slice, and an apple slice as your garnish, right, and the nice thing about using cinnamon sticks is they make great little stir sticks as well, and that is amazing, right, so those two drinks for fall drinks, absolutely amazing, and then we just made the Hayley Nicholas spiced orange, which is the same thing as a spiced orange but we take the apple juice at would put in champagne, it's a different taste for me, it's, it's a little bit too bubbly, but it's kind of growing on it, I think that if you make it the same way as a spiced orange but put in champagne, this your your filler, so to it, two parts of BSB, half a part of orange juice, dash of lemon juice, and then kind of fill to the

top of with champagne, I did not use a clove in this, by the way, you guys saw me make this, I didn't shake it, I just stirred it, the clove might actually bring out some more spices in it, but I did use a cinnamon stick, which adds a very nice spicy flavor to it, it's actually not bad, like I could get used to this, right, all these drinks can be made as a drink or as a punch, right, so now you've got all the parts, if you want to make them as a punch, and you know, start with a fifth, okay, we've got how Many ounces in a fifth, Miller is, I hate this crap, anyway, conversion, do the conversion because I talk English ounces, but you can do the conversion. As a punch, I've had the Harvest Moon as a punch, as a cold punch with ice. I've had it as a mulled punch in a crock pot. If you do the mulled punch, add some cranberries, add some apples to it, it's amazing. These

drinks are super tasty, super yummy, and I haven't found another bourbon that I can mix well with these drinks where they turn out good. I just haven't, I tried these with every bourbon in my, you know, liquor cabinet, ostensibly, which is a shitload of booze. One of these episodes I'll actually take you downstairs to where I store all the booze. I start some up here, well, not a lot compared to what I got downstairs, and you think I'm freaking stockpiling for a nuclear winter on the amount of booze that I have. I don't think that's a bad thing, right? It just is what it is.

So, BSB can be yummy, it can be useful, it makes some amazing drinks, this Harvest Moon, the spiced orange, really good drinks. I recommend you guys make these, try them out, I think you'll like him. I really do, the flavors lend themselves to fall, and every time I drink these I think football, right, that's what I think of, right, I think Charlie Brown's, you know, the Great Pumpkin, I think Thanksgiving. On the fact, for Thanksgiving last year I made one of these as a punch, and it was like, it went over like gangbusters, people loved it.

So, highly recommend you make them. However, can you go out and buy a fifth of BSB? It's not expensive actually for flavor bourbon, for a good flavor bourbon, This stuff is about 20, 25 bucks 1/5, so. it's really not that expensive at all. And these drinks are super tasty. I would say that traditional bourbon people that don't like, excuse, new people that don't like bourbon would probably like these drinks, because that, that sweetness of the BSB and all that citrus of the, the juices that we put in there kind of neutralizes the alcohol. You really don't taste it, you feel it, trust me on that one, but you don't taste it. They're good drinks, right?

So as always, be careful, drink on an empty stomach. Next week I may take a week off. I just realized that this is week 12. I started doing this when the pandemic started, that means every week we've been making one or two or three drinks. I would say we're probably about in 18 or 20 drinks from a recipe perspective, and now you guys are absolute pros. You know how to do everything I do. You got your, you've got all the stuff

you need, you've got your shakers, you've got iced tea, you've got your bar spoons, you've got your bitters, we taught you how to make simple syrup, different, different, different kinds of simple syrup, we've used vodka, we've used bourbon, we've flavor bourbon, you've gin, we've used tequila, right, we've used all kinds of different juices, all kinds of different fruits, remember when you're making drinks it really comes down to three different ingredients, there's a booze, there's usually something sweet, and something bitter or citrusy to kind of to mix those in, and whenever you're playing with drinks, just remember those simple rules, right, and you will be just fine, but I think next week we may take a week off, I may decide to not take a week off, I may decide to do it anyway, but there's a couple really boozy

drinks, there's one martini I'm dying to show you guys, and it's based on my niece Devon, pre D or Devon hanging there, for Devon pretty, I don't know which, I can't remember which lesson you do, I think Devon pretty, it's based on her boyfriend's recommendation of me trying an Aviation, and Clayton, her boyfriend, kind of put me onto this Aviation. I've done a couple different variants of the Aviation. I'm starting to really enjoy the Aviation, and there's a bastard love child that I made that mixes in Aviation and a Vesper Martini, and this drink is good, super boozy, and if you use the

right type of gin in it, it, it has this amazing, just a presentation, looks amazing. So I definitely want to show you guys how to do that at some point. I think maybe some week we'll have a bourbon tasting one, we'll just line up a bunch of bourbons and try them, knock them down maybe, but next week I will probably take the week off. So it's Father's Day, I'm gonna be a dad and get hammered in front of my kids. I think probably next Friday, because that's the father I think that you're right, so I may take next week off, so don't be surprised, but we'll be back the following way.

If we don't do next week, I made you next week, if I do, check, as always, I'll post stuff, like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, of what you need for what we're making, but other than that, be careful, be safe, you know, right now, remember, we don't need more law and order, we need more peace and justice, and with that, love you guys, now, see you in a couple weeks, most like, cheers.