I used to be a beer drinker

What happened? I've become Mike, The Incredible Cocktail Drinker From Hell.

I guess it all started with the bottle of Powers Irish Whiskey I bought. I decided one day, for some bizarre reason, I wanted to drink whiskey straight, like men with biceps and hairy balls do. I've always wanted to be like those guys. Real men. Men who own tools and not ironically. Men who can fix things. Men who saunter and swagger, instead of mince and dart like I do. I thought I would give it a "shot"….literally.

But, alas, it didn't work out. I took one gulp and immediately burst into tears. I'm serious. It made me bawl like a little bitch.

I even called my mommy. "How do the big strong men do it, Mommy?" I asked.

"Stop calling here," she said and hung up.

So, with red puffy eyes, I put the Powers on the counter by my bread mixer and tried to forget about it. Perhaps one day, I thought, I will meet a real, 3-dimensional friend who doesn't live in the internet and I could gift it to him or her.

"Here ya go," I'd say to this person made out of flesh and blood and who lives in the same town as me instead of in fucking Narnia. "Have some whiskey."

And their eyes, which wouldn't be photoshopped because they'd be standing right in front of me, would light up.

But, alas, that's just another crazy dream, doomed to be crushed and dismembered as it crashes down upon the cold hard rocks of reality.

So I decided to be sensible. Maybe I could mix it with something, I thought, which led me to the internet where I looked up a bunch of cocktail recipes. Since I only had the one bottle of whiskey, I narrowed my exploration to whiskey cocktails and eventually found one I wanted to try: The Old-Fashioned.

Now, I must say that I like vintage things. This brave new world shit doesn't cut it for me. Not only shouldn't Red Bull be in a mixed drink, it shouldn't even be in the country. I searched for "old-fashioned cocktails" and google spit out a dozen recipes for THE Old-Fashioned Cocktail, all of them, I was later to learn, wrong.

Eventually, I found the right one, performed on YouTube by the greatest living American bartender, Chris McMillian.

And I was home.

Not only did I drink up the Powers in no time flat, I actually RAN OUT of it, which was amazing to me. Here I had been saddled with a bottle of whiskey I didn't know what to do with when all of a sudden it turned into a bottle of whiskey that wasn't enough.

For a replacement, I decided to try something different, something American, something all-natural, so got a bottle of George Dickel No. 12 Tennessee sour mash whisky (no 'e').

This was even better in the Old-Fashioned. A bit sweeter but also more complex than the Powers. Good stuff.

So a whole new world has opened up before me: the world of whisky and cocktails. I have tried several of McMillian's whisky-based recipes and liked them all, but the Old-Fashioned, my first real cocktail, remains my favorite.

"Beer?" it makes me say. "What's beer?"

I decided to call my mommy to let her know of the new direction my alcoholism has taken, but her phone has been disconnected.

Oh well. Cheers!

Watch the greatest living American bartender make an Old-Fashioned