Wednesday’s What To Eat | Anything with Whiskey

So, I love whiskey. I love bourbon. I love it’s rich, golden color. I love it’s bold, brusque flavor. I love that it comes with a badass stereotype. And (duh), I love the cocktails it can birth.

So, now that we’ve covered that. I have to add that I (really, freaking) love the way you can pair it with food. And, I wouldn’t have, based on a past of pre or post dinner cocktails when it came to whiskey and bourbon, ever paired it with food. Until a little underground club came along called Whiskey Women.

Basically, it evolved out of the need for a place where women could imbibe on their favorite liquor without the added judgement that they’re manly, or worse, pretending. It celebrated the combination of three of life’s greatest things – food, booze and girlfriends. Not a lot to hate.

We gathered, by exquisite invitation only (beautiful, laser cut wood invitations by Hi Note) to enjoy the finest that mixologist Arianne Fielder could pair with Seven Lamps‘ culinary genius (guys, this place is worth checking out – Shoppes Around Lenox).

What ensued was drool-inducing savorings made all the better by crisp, creative ways to sip whiskey, cementing the worth-it foundation for probably one of the coolest clubs I’ve been a member of. Carpacchio smothering a smoked oyster, adorned by delicate crispy onions, crispy, Panko-dusted Asparagus atop perfectly-seared Duck… I mean, it just doesn’t get much better than this.

Except that the cocktails were out of this world. And I mean to emphasize, OUT OF THIS WORLD. This girl, blonde and sleeved in badass (sorry, the stereotype totally works to her advantage this time), hand-crafted some seriously cool drinks.

A strawberry sugar cubed Sazerac to start things off, a blueberry spin on a vintage old fashioned, citrus-infused and ginger-beer-doused manhattan, plus a flight ending in the Bulleit 10 Year, neat – – – Oh, did you not need to grab a napkin just then?

So, take a cue from the world of whiskey and women and grab a cocktail cookbook or your pocketbook (average cockatil cost at Seven Lamps is $11) so you can start mixing and tasting some of the best examples of tongue teasers there are. Cheers!