Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/03/11/barretts_mixology.php
Friday, March 11, 2005
1 1/2 oz. Jack Daniels
1 1/2 oz Southern Comfort
Sweet and Sour mix
Combine liquors over ice in an old-fashioned or highball glass. Fill with sour mix, and add a splash of soda.
As a staunch xenophobe, I refuse, on principle, to travel to Europe. My reasons are varied, but anecdotal reports from acquaintances collectively paint a grim picture. Aside from the people, my principle beef is with the gastronomy. Granted, I've heard the food is declicious, and it may well be. However, when it comes to drinks, I am a man of simple tastes: I like whiskey, and cheap beer served in a plastic cup, and whiskey, as we think of it, is tough to come by on the Continent. Sure, there's plenty of Scotch and Irish Whiskey that comes over from the British Isles, but, save for the occasional bottle of Jack or Jim, quality bourbon or Tennessee whiskey is non-existent. It makes sense, I suppose; the Germans and Belgians have their beer, the Dutch their pot, Italians wine, and the French drown themselves in a mixture of wine, aperitifs, digestifs and a number of other liquers which I neither care to pronounce nor to consume.
Evidently, visitors to Europe must consume their drinks with a similar draught of self-enmity. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, I once found myself in such a situation. On my way home from an assignment to a private security detail in the Near East, my plane was diverted through Paris. A freak storm, coupled with an attempted coup against the Fifth Republic by the parties of the far left, grounded me in Paris for a few days. Distraught, I was able to locate, through frantic hand gestures, the Parisian version of an American bar. I looked behind the bar, saw my Maker's Mark, and, more astoundingly, a bottle of SoCo. I demanded that the barkeep make me something stiff with said ingredients. I passed the better part of three days in the bar, taking long pulls out of the mason jar in which the concoction was served, waiting for the guillotines to be sent back to storage for another two hundred years or so.