Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Scotch!

I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly...

Yes, I prefer Scotch with soda. I’m a Philistine. Deal.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. By the time you’re reading this, I’m pulling a final shift at Hemingway’s before flying to New Orleans for an … extended R&D session. Yeah. That’s the ticket. R&D session. Whole lot of taste testing and investigation going on, I promise you. In any event, I thought I’d keep it simple and share a bottle I was gifted for Christmas. Let’s have some Scotch. Because it’s the holidays, dang it. Here’s the recipe, if you need it.

Scotch

Glenturret Triple Wood 2025

Neat: Pour 2-3 oz in a tulip glass. Add a dropperful of ice water. Wait 1-2 minutes before drinking. Take a moment to smell the Scotch before tasting. Take a small sip. Let it sit on the front of your mouth before swallowing. Wait and let the finish and flavors rise through your palate. Repeat.

Scotch and Soda: Combine 2 oz Scotch and 2 oz cold, high-quality soda water in a chilled highball or old-fashioned glass. (Don Q is recommended.) Taste and savor as per straight Scotch.

Scotch whisky is one of the few liquors I’m not familiar with. There are only a few Scotch-based cocktails; the Blood and Sand is a fairly infamous old-school drink, and the Penicillin is a solid modern creation. I’ll find a few Scotch fans at Hemingway’s on occasion, but there are far more bourbon fans than Scotch drinkers in America these days.

It’s not too hard to understand why. Scotch is nowhere near as approachable as bourbon or rye whiskey. It’s layered, smoky, and complex. It’s not remotely sweet. Tequila requires sugar, lime, and salt, but Scotch stands on its own. It takes some time to grow on you, but once you learn to appreciate it, you’re hooked. In a world that seems more and more juvenile over time, Scotch is decisively a drink for the adults of this world.

There’s always been a touch of defiance to Scotch, a refusal to bend to the winds of fate. Bessie Williamson, a secretary who went on to manage the Laphroig distillery after World War II, insisted that the quintessential Islay whisky retain its peaty, rough character even as American bourbon devolved into sweetened moonshine. That commitment to smoky, peaty flavor is a touchstone to Scotch across the country; I can find gentle smoke flavors in lowland blended whisky made far from Islay.

The Glenturret I’m sampling today is made in Perth, far from Islay’s rough coastline. The Triple Wood is their youngest Scotch, and I have to confess I found it a bit harsh when sampled neat. On the rocks, or with soda, the whisky opens up. A subtle liquor, like a complex wine, benefits from some suggestive selling. This bottle of Glenturret Triple Wood is hard to pin down on its own. When you hear the adjectives Glenturret uses to describe the Scotch — fruit, apple, toffee, wood spices — the flavors become recognizable.

The Glenturret is a single-malt Scotch, which means that all of the Scotch used in this blend comes from the same location — Glenturret’s distillery in Perth. That doesn’t mean this is the product of a single barrel or distillation. The “Triple Wood” in the name refers to three different aging processes in this whisky. Scotch aged in sherry-seasoned American oak, European oak, and ex-bourbon barrels all contribute to the final product. The sheer artistry of Scotch master blenders continues to amaze me. I’m astounded at how much flavor an artist can coax from the same product, aged and barreled in different ways. That’s probably why I don’t use Scotch much in my cocktails. The artistry in this bottle deserves significant respect; adding lemon juice and sugar to it feels like sacrilege. But on my weekend off, I’m happy to yield the spotlight to another artist.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot, from my kitchen table. It’s my day off, what can I tell you?

Genturret Triple Wood 2025: This bottle is a touch rare; it was a gift from a friend, and not always easy to find. Don’t let that stop you from exploring Scotch. Johnny Walker Black is an excellent place to start exploring Scotch. Johnny Walker Red? Dewars? Not so much. Good Scotch costs some money, but it’s worth it. Go ahead and splurge; it’s Christmas. There’s so much subtlety and flavor in good Scotch; take your time and explore the choices open to you.

Soda Water: Neat Scotch can be delightful, but I have to confess I prefer my Scotch with a splash of soda. There’s a lot of cheap soda water on the market, but splurging on better soda is a better choice. It’s a shame to add soda that costs less than a dollar to $75 Scotch. Don Q is the fizziest soda water available; feel free to use what you like. Keep the soda water in the fridge; the colder your soda is, the fizzier it will be.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

OPEN THREAD!