My favorite portion of Mother Jones's website is definitely "Ben's Thoughts," where Ben Dreyfuss just kind of riffs on whatever is going through his head at any given time. Fantastic stuff. His headline game is strong, but his URL game is unbelievable.
He wrote something particularly great yesterday, though, and I just had to share it with you. It's superficially about whiskey's superiority to wine (a fact no True American would deny). But it's really about life. Here's Ben:
Booze is cool. Booze is effective. There are many different types of boozes. Drink whiskey. Whiskey is the best booze. You probably don't even like the taste of whiskey. But you can get there. You can learn to love it.
Whiskey burns. You'll come to love that burn because that burn will be painful and that pain will be like going home.
This is the truest thing that has ever been written. One could mark their progression through life by how they consume whiskey. When I was a child, I drank whiskey like a child—I gagged, I winced at the burn, I thought "ugh, just give me a glass of merlot or something." But then I put away childish things and I came to understand that you need something to get you going, to wake you up. To make you understand how life works. Fermented grape juice is all well and good if you're in a pinch or if you're watching a Sex in the City marathon. But if you're going to spend time and money acquiring a taste for alcohol, make it an alcohol that gets the job done.
Obviously, this raises a secondary question: which whiskey is best. The choice, it seems to me, is clear: bourbon. The case can be made for scotch whisky, of course, but given that scotch is, generally speaking, made in Europe, I'll pass.* Tennessee whiskey is pretty good; I prefer Dickel to Daniels, but to each his own. Bourbon, though, is the great American spirit, the drink that men drunk as they were conquering the west. Personally? I like Old Weller Antique, a rich, 107 proof bourbon that, paradoxically, burns but also goes down smooth, hinting at vanilla as it hits the back of your throat. Great stuff from the Buffalo Trace Distillery. Unfortunately, Old Weller Antique has become harder and harder to obtain—and more expensive. This is true of many "premium" bourbons—it's literally been years since I've been able to obtain a bottle of William Larue Weller, a barrel-strength bourbon that is the greatest whiskey man has ever made, at any price. As with most problems, we have the Russkies and the Chinese to blame for this.
In these troubling times we see whiskey representing yet another stage in life: wanting, and not being able to have, something. Life is cruel and you can't always get what you want. Yet you struggle on, making do with what you have, putting one foot in front of the other while desperately avoiding the urge to snuff it. Then, one day, just as you're about to give up hope, you stumble into the liquor store and find that they have a brand new shipment of your favorite bottle of the brown stuff.
And everything's okay again.
*An exception: Leviathan II, which is made in California and is quite tasty. Very peaty, if you're into that kind of thing.