Over on Whisky Magazine social media, we're celebrating National Bourbon Heritage Month alongside our sister magazine American Whiskey. Accordingly, it's only fitting that this week's cocktail is bourbon-forward. It comes from Kentucky's Neat Bourbon Bar.
Neat Bourbon Bar and Bottle Shop opened in Louisville in 2022, with a focus on vintage whiskey. Quickly, cocktail became about half of the bar's business, thanks to bar manager Dante Wheat, whose cocktail bar CV includes Louisville whiskey bars Butchertown Grocery and Michter’s Fort Nelson.
Wheat has an unusual approach to cocktail making, as he told Maggie Kimberl for issue 37 of American Whiskey: "Most of the time, I figure out what I want the cocktails to be named first because a lot of times it really doesn’t matter what the cocktail has in it if the name is catchy enough. So I’ll just come up with names based on either songs I was listening to at the time, pop culture references, memes sometimes. And then based on whatever the name of the cocktail is, I’ll figure out, all right, what would be the flavours that match
whatever the name of this is?"
This cocktail, the King's Court, has just three ingredients — meaning its bourbon can shine.
Ingredients:
2oz bourbon
0.75oz lime
0.75oz cherry juice
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a coupe glass (no ice) and garnish with a lime wedge.
Need more inspiration? Catch up on previous cocktail of the week selections.
