White Dog.

The NY Times has an article today about White Dog, aka Moonshine, Hooch, The Devil's Tears, Appalachian Gold, Jethro's Jamba Juice, Smoky Mountain Sweetness.  For once in my life I was ahead of the curve on this one, and I picked up a bottle for last year's First Annual Weisberg & Friends Likor Tasting (last year it was whiskey, this year, a couple of weeks ago, it was beer).  I bought a bottle of Tuthilltown Hudson Corn Whiskey, which, interestingly, came in a bottle that was twice the size and half the cost of what they sell now.

Anyway, the shit's not exactly a crowd pleaser: bring your nose to the glass, breath deeply, and you're likely to end up on your ass a mile away.  But once you move past that and actually take a nip it's really quite pleasant.  There's a clean sweetness to it that one could definitely get used to.  Making cocktails with it is a different story altogether.  At the time of the tasting last year, I happened to notice that Prime Meats uses an unaged corn whiskey in one of their cocktails so I (surprise!) struck up a conversation with the bartender.  He said that you almost need to treat it like a tequila when making a cocktail with it, such is the force of its nose.

Truth be told I think I've only had a nip from my bottle once, or maybe twice, since the tasting, but maybe I'll give it another shot.