The Whiskey Reviewer A World of Whiskey, Poured Every Weekday
By Richard Thomas
The Brass Buck,
or whiskey with ginger ale and lime
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
As I’ve observed many times before, living in a hot climate without refrigeration-scale air conditioning pretty much scuppers the consumption of neat whiskey. As a Kentucky boy, the way I solved that problem for many years was by making mint juleps, but that is a major investment of time and effort, however rewarding. The next step was to the whiskey and cola combo, which while easy and cold, gets old after a while. So what about the other soft drinks?
When Jim Beam introduced their Red Stag cherry-infused bourbon, they also soon introduced the Brass Buck, a simple cherry whiskey and ginger ale mixed drink. Of course, Red Stag isn’t the only brand name cherry-infused whiskey on the market anymore (if it ever was), and I’ve found the idea behind the Brass Buck works just as well with any other type of cherried whiskey. The bourbon base of Red Stag makes the drink a little sweeter, but the cherry, ginger ale and lime flavors are so predominant that one barely notices. For this article, I used the DYC Red One I had on hand.
Ingredients
Cherry-infused whiskey
Ginger ale
Lime
Ice
Fill a highball glass 3/4s of the way with ice. Combine 3 parts whiskey and 4 parts ginger ale into the glass. Although the original recipe calls for just one lime slice, I like using two. Stir, and you’re ready to go.
I find the Red Stag Jim Bean only tastes good with one Ginger ale ,and that is Canada Dry , and not the diet soda.I have tried other Ginger ale’s and it does not taste the same.
Editor — I’ve used both Red Stag and Red One to make Brass Bucks, but the ginger ale in question was always Schweppes. As I described, the results were a little different between the whiskeys, but the ginger ale was basically fine by me. Then again, I like to use double the recommended amount of lime.
I’ll have to try Canada Dry the next time I am fiddling with this.