It’s also Back to School month. In honor of that, a bit of history: on May 4, 1964, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 declaring Bourbon “America’s native spirit,” making it “the only spirit distinctive to the United States.” S. Res. 19 was later reinforced in August 2007, by Senate Resolution 294 (sponsored by Kentucky Senator, Jim Bunning, of course) which declared September “National Bourbon Heritage Month” and celebrated Bourbon’s “heritage and tradition and place in the history of the United States.”

The point of the history lesson is not only to impress you with our ability to Google interesting factoids, but also–with tongues planted firmly in cheek–to let you know that it is our civic, patriotic duty to observe this occasion with all of the pomp and grandeur that it deserves. To that end, we present the Smoked Old Fashioned, featuring Basil Hayden’s Bourbon and fragrant notes of burnt cedar.

A creation of the master mixologists at Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, the drink is prepared using a butane torch, a plank of cedar, a few dashes of chocolate bitters, an orange peel and, of course, Basil Hayden’s finest. It’s not an overstatement to say that we are in love, to the point of obsession, with this drink.

We’re not going to attempt to describe the process or even the recipe. The artistry involved in the preparation of the Smoked Old Fashioned is something to see and part of what makes it taste so good.  It is also the perfect ritual with which to observe Bourbon’s special month.

Presented without audio of typical loud, background bar noise, the Smoked Old Fashioned. Behold…

This is one trick we definitely encourage you to try at home.

In case you don’t already have one (we didn’t), you can get a set of very good cedar planks here and excellent chocolate bitters here. You should be able to figure out the rest on your own.

To National Bourbon Heritage Month…Cheers!