Pairing Cigars & Alcohol – Wild Turkey
Cigars and alcohol. Two luxury products that go hand in hand, and sometimes even meet on business level. Aging tobacco in whisky, rum, or cognac barrels is a practice several brands do to achieve extra flavour to the wrapper for certain lines. The famous bourbon brand Maker’s Mark has their own cigar, sold in tubes with the signature wax coating. Drew Estate works with Pappy van Winkle and used to make Kahlua cigars. Mombacho used to have the Diplomatico series. General Cigars works with Sazerac, which resulted in Fireball cigars, Weller by Cohiba and collaborations with Buffalo Trace. And there is the Diesel Whisky Row, a collaboration with Rabbit Hole Distilleries. Fratello Cigars also sells craft beer. Most famous are probably the Cuban collaboration between Martell Cognac and Cohiba. Dominique London, the European retailer with more than 20 shops in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Canary Islands takes it one step further. They bought a distillery in Wales and produce whisky, gin, rum, vodka and liquors.
Wild Turkey
I am not too familiar with bourbons, but everywhere I look I see Wild Turkey Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky nowadays. All the cocktail channels on YouTube are using it regularly so it is time for me to give it a go too. The brand was founded in 1940, but existed before under a different name. Austin Nichols, am alcohol wholesaler, used to buy the whisky from the Old Hickory Distillery and sold it under different names. One of the employees of Nichols took some samples on a wild turkey hunting trip and afterwards his friends kept asking for that ‘wild turkey whisky’. In 1971 Nichols bought the distillery and renamed it to the Wild Turkey Distillery. A few years later the company was purchased by Pernod Ricard, who later sold it to the Campari group.
Wild Turkey uses a mash consisting of a relatively lower percentage of corn than most bourbons and attempts are made to counteract the alkaline environment of the company’s limestone-rich water. Additionally, the raw whiskey is distilled to about 55%, much lower than the legally allowed maximum to be considered bourbon. Barrels are rotated in open houses to allow more even maturation, being aged until at least one third of the contents to be lost to evaporation before they are considered for bottling. The cask used are alligator charred American oak. That is a level 4 char where the cask is burned for close to a minute until the barrel begins to crack and peel in a rough, shiny pattern that looks like alligator skin. The result is a bourbon with 40.5% ABV
Neat
First, I try this in a Glencairn glass. The nose is smooth, sweet and spicy oak with vanilla, caramel and coffee. The bourbon is rich in flavour, sweet and sticky. Caramel, honey, fudge and custard with espresso. This is much better than I expected to be honest and the finish, with a mix of coffee, caramel, honey and charred wood doesn’t disappoints either. Pair this with a nice Connecticut Broadleaf cigar and you’re in heaven. The sweetness of this spirit and that maduro wrapper will pair up perfectly.
The second pour is in a rocks glass. The nose is milder, like a watered down version even though it’s neat. The shape of the glass makes a huge difference. The spirit itself feels a bit spicier, with a little bite and the sweetness gets a bit of a dark forest fruit flavour. If you drink Wild Turkey 81 from a rocks glass, try a Corojo wrapped cigar. Try the CLE Corojo, Leaf by Oscar Corojo or El Gueguense Maduro.
Old Fashioned
The old fashioned usually smells like orange, due to the orange oil and the orange peel. And with a Wild Turkey Old Fashioned it’s very much the same. The sugar completely changes the sweetness, the bitters add a bitter note that goes very well with the orange. The bourbon provides some vanilla, oak and fudge. This tastes very different than the neat versions, even though the ingredients are mostly the same. This is a pleasant version of the Old Fashioned and it will go well with an earthy cigar such as the Montecristo No.2, Pledge Prequel, or an Ashton VSG.
And now for the Old-Fashioned recipe:
1 sugar cube
3 dashes of bitters
2 oz or 60 ml of whisky
orange peel
Put the sugar cube in a highball glass, add the dashes of bitters and a splash of water. Muddle the sugar cube. Add ice and the whisky. Stir for 10 seconds, then add an orange peel.
Suffering Bastard
The mint garnish dominates the nose over a base of ginger and lime. Even though the lime is the least of all the ingredients, its aroma is stronger than the gin, bourbon or the bitters. Since the ginger beer is poured on top of the booze, it’s the most prominent flavour although the lime shines through too. The fudge sweetness and the vanilla oak from the bourbon and the juniper and botanicals from the gin work wonders with the spice from the ginger beer, and the lime binds it all together. The spice of the ginger will go together fantasticly with an African Cameroon wrapper such as the Oliva series G, Roma Craft Baka or a Fuente Hemingway Short Story Natural.
And now for the Suffering bastard recipe:
1 ounce or 30ml of Wild Turkey
1 ounce or 30ml of Gin
2 dashes of bitters
½ ounce or 15ml of Lime Juice, freshly squeezed
Ginger beer to top
garnish: Mint sprig
Add the liquids minus the ginger beer in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice and top up with ginger beer. Garnish with a mint sprig
Inspector X
