The Rochester Fringe Festival. The Spiegeltent. Five o’clock, Friday afternoon. We’ve been festing hard. Time for a drink. The event is called “Dram-ocracy.”
They check my ID at the door. I am 69 years old. I am allowed in.
Our host is Brian McKenzie, from the Finger Lakes Distillery Company, on Seneca Lake. We sit. In front of each of us, seven tiny plastic shot glasses. Seven tastes, ranging from reposado to rum to rye to seven-year-old single malt to 11-year-old apple brandy to five-year-old barrel gin. Gin, “I have a friend who calls it ‘werewolf juice,’” McKenzie says.
We learn stuff like whiskey is grain based. Brandy is fruit based. Duffy’s malt whiskey, made in Rochester, was once advertised as it “would also cure habitual drunkenness.”
Four of these are cask-strength tastes, McKenzie warns, “so use your water.” I do so. To tame the werewolf in me.
Jeff Spevak, a former sportswriter, a former arts writer, a former radio commentator, can be reached at jeffspevakwriter@gmail.com.