Bourbon Tastings and Parties

Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon? is a thorough guide to planning bourbon tastings, bourbon-themed parties and cocktail parties, bourbon food pairings, and much more.

You might not be able to compete with a bourbon tasting or food pairing done at a bourbon distillery after a tour, but doing your own bourbon tasting at home, or having a bourbon-themed party or cocktail party, is perfectly possible using the advice contained in this handsome coffee-table book. The authors also make recommendations for bourbon food pairings, and there are plenty of bourbon cocktail recipes, and food recipes that include bourbon too.

Bourbon Tastings and Parties: The Authors

The authors of this quirkily-titled book are Peggy Noe Stevens and Susan Reigler. Now if you know your bourbon you know your Noes. Booker Noe, the grandson of Jim Beam himself, was Master Distiller at Jim Beam for over 40 years, and was succeeded by his son Fred Noe. Peggy Noe Stevens is indeed part of the larger Noe family, though she stresses in the book that she has no association with any one distillery, and there’s certainly no bias towards Jim Beam that I could see.

According to Amazon:

Peggy Noe Stevens is president of Peggy Noe Stevens & Associates, founder of the Bourbon Women Association, and the first female master bourbon taster in the world. A lifestyle expert, she is also a professional speaker. As an inductee to both the Bourbon and Whiskey Halls of Fame, she has planned hundreds of experiences and events globally over the last thirty years, often working with distilleries and master distillers.

Susan Reigler is a former restaurant critic for the Louisville Courier-Journal and a current correspondent for Bourbon+ and American Whiskey magazines. She has also authored or coauthored six books on bourbon, including Kentucky Bourbon Country: The Essential Travel Guide and The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book. In 2019, she was inducted into the Order of the Writ.

These women sure know their bourbon, then, and how to plan events. A little bourbon tasting at home must be a piece of cake for them, then. Perhaps a Bourbon Pineapple Pound Cake, one of the delicious-sounding recipes in this book.

Foreword

The book has a Foreword by the ubiquitous and always entertaining Fred Minnick, in which he realizes that his early attempts at hosting a bourbon tasting were really just him and his friends sitting round drinking bourbon and shooting the breeze. The only snacks he provided were Kraft American cheese slices and apples, but he concludes that ‘This book will change how you throw parties, and it will help you find your own entertainment style. And most important, in your circle of friends, you’ll be the cool one because you’ll know which fork to use with your bourbon.’

Beautifully Presented

The book is as beautifully presented as the authors intend your bourbon tastings and parties to be. The photography is lovely and stylish, and the layout very clear with plenty of white space so that the photos of things like suggested table layouts really pop out of the page.

Grand Party

Now I have no intention of putting on the kind of grand party the book will help you to cope with – no written invitations six weeks ahead, no hiring musicians, no rearranging the house to provide a two-sided buffet. Our house isn’t big enough, for one thing. So at first I wasn’t sure this was going to be the book for me, but as I diligently went through it I realized I was picking up lots of ideas that we could use even if we were just inviting a few friends round to have dinner – and some bourbon, of course.

Party Tricks

The book is filled with little boxes on the pages headed Party Trick, and these are filled with tips for creating better parties. Many of them are simple but really good ideas, such as:

‘If you are inviting a special guest that everyone will want to meet, or if the party is a celebration of someone’s birthday, create a unique cocktail, punch, or dish and name it in honor of that special guest.’

‘Give sealed containers of sample-sized cocktails to departing guests as party favors.’

Funny Quotes

Each chapter also begins with an amusing or apt quote, such as this one which kicks off the book:

‘Keeping one’s guests supplied with liquor is the First Law of Hospitality.’ – Margaret Way

A Light Touch

If you’ve ever traveled in the south you’ll know that hospitality is a way of life, and is overwhelmingly generous. Most people also enjoy a drink. I remember going to breakfast at someone’s home in Mississippi and being greeted with a choice of cocktails at the front door. If I remember rightly, it was about 9.30am. As I accepted (just to be polite, you understand), the hostess told me: ‘This is merely a libation. After noon, it becomes a cocktail, and then in the evening we like a drink.’

That’s the tone of this book. Although the information is serious, and intended to help you impress your guest, a joke is never far away: ‘[It] doesn’t mean our taste buds are better than yours. We just have a lot of experience. We learn every time we “practice” (and we practice a lot) tasting and evaluating new spirits and foods together.’

Cocktails and Recipes

The book provides a fair number of both food and cocktail recipes to help you with your party planning, whether it’s a bourbon tasting with nibbles, a cocktail party with finger food, or a full-blown dinner party with several courses. Now, I make pretty good mashed potatoes, sometimes with mustard, sometimes with garlic, sometimes flavored with olive oil, but I had never yet thought of putting bourbon into them! And I’m definitely trying their recipes for tuna spread and puffed potatoes.

Bourbon Party Bible

The bulk of the book, though, is good, sensible advice and creative ideas, like a Bourbon Party Bible. The authors discuss absolutely everything from drawing up a guest list, designing and sending out invites, preparing a seating plan if it’s a dinner, how to choose bourbons for a tasting (tip: if you’re tasting bourbon don’t have fresh flowers nearby), advice on table and room décor, how to present food more attractively, how to set up a buffet and a bar, how to taste bourbon and host a tasting, which bourbons pair with which flavors, how to hold a Kentucky Derby Party, and even a whole section on how Kentucky bourbon distilleries themselves entertain (from personal experience I can say ‘lavishly’.)

Although at the present time we can’t be holding large parties, there’s plenty of advice in this book, even if you’re just having a couple of close friends round, or if you want to have a socially-distanced bourbon tasting to help cheer everyone up. Even if bourbon isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of great advice and fun ideas for any kind of party, themed or not, in this excellent book.

Bourbon Tastings and Parties

Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon is published by the University Press of Kentucky at $29.95 and you can buy it as a print edition or an e-book on their website.

You’ll find a wide range of bourbons for sale at Caskers.