My favorite browns to geek out on

Like so many people, I started drinking whiskey in college — always mixing it with some kind of sweet, carbonated beverage. I was keen on moving past the Sloe Gin Fizzes and Mad Dog 20/20 of my youth and I wanted to prove my worldliness. The sugary soda I insisted on adding to my whiskey might have undermined my newfound sophistication a bit. But everyone else was doing it — so what the heck?

When I came to Nashville in 1988, I started volunteering for whatever not-for-profits would have me. Eventually, I wound up chairing a bike ride for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society that was so unsuccessful we had to do it over. When a local cyclist pitched a route that traveled from Franklin to Moore County and back, a friend and I couldn’t help but make eye contact. “Jack Daniel’s,” we said, in unison. Thus, began the National MS Society’s annual “Bike to Jack and Back.” Always one to support our donors, I decided to give Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel a try. Its sweet, subtle vanilla flavors offered the perfect gateway to drinking whiskey on the rocks.