A SOLEMN ADVENT CELEBRATION

 A couple of months ago (sometime in October), Jeannie made reference to an Advent calendar, something I had never heard of.

Growing up, my parents had an Advent wreath with four candles, but Jeannie talked about a calendar with little openings and little candies for each day from December 1 to December 24.

I thought-'there should be one for whiskey'-and googled it, and lo and behold there are, although they were all from companies based in the UK.

I found an empty Advent calendar box online an purchased it, only to find it had twelve openings, so while they called it an 'Advent' calendar it was really more suitable for the 12 days of Christmas.

Undeterred, I bought 24 shooters of various whiskies (one each for Jeannie and me), leading up to Blanton's on the final day. I had not decided whether we would do this during Advent and augment it with whiskey from the shelf, or do a 12 days of Christmas calendar.

Jeannie made the decision easy-she had ordered one of the calendars from the UK as a surprise, so I suggested we share that for the first 12 days of Advent and then finish the season with my homemade calendar.

I am sure that if Jesus had been born in Kentucky rather than Bethlehem, the Magii would have given bourbon as one of their gifts (probably 20 year Pappy Van Winkle)

Here are the first three days' selections from the UK calendar:

Day One-an Elijah Craig small batch bourbon and a ten-year Bulleit whiskey-both excellent

Day Two-Old Scout whiskey (good, but a little harsh) and a Whistlepig six-year rye. The rye was quite good, and I am still new to rye whiskey

Day Three-Gentleman Jack and Few Spirits rye. I have had Jack Daniels hundreds of times (it used to be my go-to) but had never before tried Gentleman Jack and thought it was quite smooth, much more so than I remember Jack being (it has been years). The Few Spirits rye was good, although I liked the Whistlepig from day 2 a lot better. 

More to come....