Review – H. Deringer, Bourbon Whiskey, Small Batch, (No Age Stated), 46%

I raised my children in love. Despite the more modern Disney princesses’ best efforts, I taught my daughters that, indeed, they are prizes to be won. Despite this world’s selfish interests, I taught my sons to be honorable men worthy of other fathers’ daughters.

Except when it comes to the board game “Monopoly.”

Monopoly has a history in my family. For starters, let the reader understand I’ve never legitimately lost a game of Monopoly in my adult life. At one point along my youthful way, I realized something about the game that ultimately, changed how I played it. As a result, I now have a tested strategy that seems to deliver victory after victory, no matter how cursed the dice rolls might seem.

The proof of these victories is recorded in our family’s game. This is to say, when you open and turn over our Monopoly game’s lid, you’ll discover a list of dates and endgame wealth totals. My name is beside each date and total. Most of the totals reach far past the standard $15,000 available to the game’s bank. How is this possible? Because I never take all of my opponents’ cash and instead enjoy various transactions that inevitably extend their suffering, typically resulting in astronomical IOUs. 

My oldest son, Joshua, is now married. He and his wife just welcomed their first child, our grandson, Preston. A few weeks before Preston’s birth, my wife, Jennifer, purchased an older version of the Monopoly board game. She chose it because the new ones just aren’t the same. Something is lacking in their design.

Nevertheless, she bought it for Josh because every family needs a Monopoly game. She asked me to inscribe it. I agreed, fully aware of Monopoly’s more profound nature relative to a patriarchal responsibility. To pass along this wisdom, I wrote a note inside the lid of the gifted board game. It read as follows:

Joshua,

Your mother purchased this game for you. However, I was tasked with the inscription. It must be as follows.

Charles Kettering once said, “Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.” I suppose this was never truer than in the game of Monopoly. My advice has always been that you love your wife selflessly in all things. And yet, not here. Here, you crush her. I’ve always urged you to sacrifice all that you are for your children’s wellbeing, and yet again, not here. Here, they are treated cruelly. I’ve raised you to be kind and of generous spirit to others. But not here. Here, you take everything, leaving behind only hopelessness.

Indeed, with Monopoly, my example has not matched my advice—because it does not belong. Here, you decimate. Here, you build empires while destroying futures. Here, the respect owed the family’s patriarch and the genuineness of natural law’s viciousness reign with relenting fury. Monopoly leaves room for nothing else.

It’s your turn as husband and father to wield this heavy and unrelenting but glorious sword. Follow your father’s example, not his advice. Show no mercy. Give no quarter. Destroy all, and then keep a record. These are Monopoly’s timeless biddings.

Love,

Dad (also known by many as The Undefeated One)

With a surge of primitive manliness resonating through my frame, I set the box top aside, laid the pen against its edge, and poured a two-fingered dram of the H. Deringer Bourbon Whiskey. It only makes sense to pour from a man-of-the-house bottle with a single-shot percussion pistol for a topper.

A gift from my good friends Scott and Georgie Rhodes, the Deringer received harsh reviews in the digital sphere. And while my readers know well enough I’m not one to give a lousy whiskey a good review just because friends gave it to me, the Deringer does not deserve the hate.

From the bottle, its nose is a clean wafting of Werther’s candy with a hint of warmed challah bread. From a glass, it’s the same, adding only a slight pinch of spice.

A sip continues the spice while adding chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon. There may even be a drop of butter in there somewhere.

The finish is medium-long. It remembers the cookies and butter, but within moments, it ponders sour oak. It’s not necessarily the best ending. However, it isn’t the worst. Overall, the dram is enjoyable. Interestingly, a few drops of water rid the finish entirely of its sourness.

If anything, the H. Deringer is the kind of whiskey a man wants beside him during a furious game of Monopoly, if only to intimidate the opponents. I don’t necessarily need it beside me. As I said, I never lose. My strategy has proven relatively invincible. Everyone else might do well to add it to theirs, though.

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