HistoricOmaha

Here in Dundee, we have one of the largest Scotch selections in America at the Dundee Dell. Scotch tastings the 1st Sunday of every month at 4:00 p.m. and repeated the following Thursday at 7:00 p.m.

I’m not a Scotch drinker, so I am mainly attracted to their World of Beers and Fish & Chips. Occasionally, I’ll drink Bombay Saphire & tonic or Citron & sour. Scotch has never interested me, until now. Maybe BJ can take me under his wing.

Max Riffner has written how his grandfather taught him to overcome his body’s objection to the taste.

Here is how I learned how to drink it, which I actually learned from my grandfather because this is how an older gentleman taught him how to drink it.

1. Buy a bottle of scotch. Make sure it is blended. Blended will be cheaper. Stay away from the bottom shelf at the liquor store – a few brands you’ll want to look for are J&B, Dewars, Famous Grouse or Johnnie Walker. Cutty Sark and Chivas Regal are good also, I’m told. Blended scotch is malt whiskey (scotch) blended with grain whiskey (traditional whiskey), so the taste is not as harsh as a single malt scotch. We have to build up to those.
2. Grab a small glass with a couple of ice cubes in it and fill about a thumbs worth of scotch in the glass, then fill the rest of the glass with water.
3. Drink up.
4. The next night, add a bit more scotch and a bit less water.
5. Continue every night by adding a bit more scotch and a bit less water. After a month, you should be able to drink all scotch and no water on the rocks (or ice for the morons out there).
6. Now, you are a scotch drinker. Congratulations, it wasn’t so bad, was it? Now, take out the ice cubes – you still aren’t ready for a single malt yet.
7. Once you can drink blended scotch with no water or ice cubes, you can try a single malt. Single malts are a whole new world (by the way, you can drink your scotch with a water chaser, but you don’t want to mix the two together – if you are caught drinking a single malt with water on the rocks you are dead to me).
8. Laugh at all the people who smell your drink and ask how you could possibly drink such a thing. You are now a member of the drinking elite, a person of refined tastes. You’ll never want to drink anything else again.
   • Bonus if you are a woman. Scotch drinking women are rare these days (although still seen in bowling alleys).