I do enjoy mixing up cocktails myself. But I can also appreciate when a brand takes the time to gather the ingredients and do all of the work for me.
Thank you Traverse City Whiskey Co. for developing these enjoyable ready-to-serve Old Fashioned cocktails.
Please let me attempt to paint a picture for you, or rather a flavor experience. Beginning with the 6-Year Whiskey Old Fashioned cocktail made with Traverse City’s award winning 6-year Bourbon.
If you like a little Luxardo cherry syrup in your Old Fashioned, then you will absolutely love this cocktail. I don’t believe that is actually an ingredient, but immediately the flavor of cherry syrup is present on the palate. It’s also heavy clove and allspice, paving the way to the full whiskey experience, with just enough sweetness to sip anytime. If you happen to have a fresh orange, do yourself a favor: using a vegetable peeler pull off one wide slice and express the oils over the top of your glass, then drop it in. There is absolutely no difference at this point in the taste of making yourself a from-scratch Old Fashioned with a few heavy drops of cherry syrup, and enjoying this cocktail straight out of the bottle.
The second cocktail, is a Cherry Old Fashioned, made with the best-selling Traverse City Cherry Whiskey. If you know anything about Michigan agriculture, you know that they produce more than 65% of the tart cherries grown in the United States. And believe me, the locals take their cherries very seriously. You can enjoy “cherry everything” in Michigan, from pies and ice creams to BBQ sauce and salsas. So adding local cherries to whiskey is a birth-right in Michigan.
Again, pouring a cocktail right out of a bottle is so much easier than working with scratch ingredients. Have you ever tried to pit and process fresh cherries? It’s a tedious task with a small payout, and you better not be wearing any good clothes. The front-end flavor in the Cherry Old Fashioned is very familiar, my mind immediately went to the center of a chocolate covered cherry, definitely sweeter than the 6-Year-Old Fashioned, but not overly so. I might suggest a lemon peel with this cocktail variety, again expressing the oils over the cocktail. This cocktail will make any Michiganian beam with pride.
Prosumer tip: I sampled both of these cocktails right out of the bottle at room temperature when they arrived. Then I put the bottles in the refrigerator and tried them again the next day. The flavors are so much more pronounced at room temperature, so don’t bother chilling your bottle ahead of time.
Just go from the shelf to a glass over ice for the most delicious experience!
