Welcome back to Dice and Drams! For this month’s entry, I wanted to make a return to a classic. I’m always up for a brain-burner, but sometimes enjoying a simple evergreen with friends is just what the doctor ordered. With that in mind, I’m pairing up a classic with a classic: Ticket to Ride with Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond.
The Pairing: Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond with Ticket to Ride
The Whiskey: Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond
One of the things I love about this bottle is that there are no pretenses about it being something more than it is. It’s a simple, straightforward, delicious bourbon. The nose offers the classic bourbon notes of vanilla, caramel, and light cherry. Those notes follow through on the palate, with the caramel becoming distinctly noticeable. Finally, the finish is brief but pleasant, with the caramel and vanilla notes flowing on for just a bit longer. This pour also carries the proof well, with the alcohol burn being pleasant rather than overwhelming. You can get this bottle anywhere for less than $20, which is always a win. I will always take a glass of this with no complaint.
The Game: Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride is board game soul food. I love complex games with multiple layers of strategy, but there are also times I want to just sit around a table with friends and have a good time, and Ticket to Ride offers that. In Ticket to Ride, your goal is to have the most railroad routes built between cities on the board, matching routes in your hand. Generally, the longer the route, the more points it’s worth. You do this by playing cards our of your hand that match the color of the route on the board. The little bit of strategizing comes from timing when to take certain routes based on what other players are doing – if a player takes a route, it’s gone, and that can really hurt your chances of connecting two cities you need. Trying to read where other players are going is important.
That’s pretty much it – draw cards, play them to build routes, and outmaneuver other players. It’s simple and it’s fun. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
The Final Pairing:
Perhaps it makes sense to pair together a more complex whiskey with a simpler game, or vice versa, to allow the simplicity of the one to enable focus on the complexity of the other. However, with this pairing, my line of thinking was more “classic with classic”. There’s so much new in both board games and whiskey, and that’s a great thing – we’ll never run out of new things to try. But there are times to call for returning what is good and simple, and that’s what this pairing is to me.
Cheers and happy gaming!
