Spirits with a taste of the fairway!
As the season changes and blooms begin to dot the landscape, spring is officially golf season. If you are looking for the perfect tipple to toast a game well played (or even attempted), here are three spirits apropos for the occasion, all available at Atlanta area liquor shops.
Vodka to the Fore
Hole #3 at Augusta National is said to be virtually perfect in design. While this is probably due to slopes, bunkers and a full shot to the green, the designation is apropos. Number three is nicknamed “Flowering Peach.” Each hole is named for a type of flower within the golf course, and these blooms trace back to Fruitland Nurseries, the fundamental reason Georgia peaches are as famous as they are. One vodka continues to tell the story.
Berckmans American Vodka is named for Prosper J. Berckman who owned the largest Georgia peach farm in the 19th century. He’s known as the “Father of Georgia Peaches” for planting more than 3 million trees and introducing more than 300 varieties of the sweet fruit. He started the Georgia Horticultural Society, hoping to help others succeed in growing and farming. After his death, Fruitland Nurseries was purchased to create Augusta National, preserving his residence as the clubhouse and many of the trees and shrubs he planted, including those famous azaleas. It’s a bottled legacy woven into the area’s golf history.
Raise a Glass with Bourbon
Just an hour and a half drive from Atlanta, Sweetens Cove is a nine hole public course west of Chattanooga. A group of friends bought it in 2019. It has no clubhouse, but there is a tradition of a celebratory shot of booze at a golfer’s first hole. A place where the game of golf is distilled to its purest form deserves its own whiskey. Partners, including Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick, enlisted the help of Master Blender Marianne Eaves, Kentucky’s first female to hold that title since Prohibition, to create a namesake bourbon, and it has garnered awards of greatness ever since.
Sweetens Cove is a cask-strength Tennessee bourbon, aged 13 years with a chocolatey/caramel nose, baking spices on the palate and a lingering finish. Eaves also blends the historic rivalry of Kentucky and Tennessee bourbon together in bottling Kennessee Bourbon Whiskey. Aged five years and finished with sugar maple wood, it has the balance, sweetness and warmth of the homey course that draws golfers to make a pilgrimage.
Gin Up Enthusiasm for the Game
The story of golf begins at St. Andrews, known as “The Home of Golf,” on Scotland’s east coast. The Old Course is the birthplace of the game as we know it. Lore says the 18 holes come from the notion that a bottle of Scotch has 18 shots. You can see the Old Course Hotel and St. Andrews cathedral from Eden Mill distillery, and you can taste the spirit of the course where the sport started.
It’s not Scotch, but there is a taste of place in Eden Mill Golf Gin. The classic London dry style is infused with ingredients you could spot while playing the course, all organically sourced from along the storied coastline. The waters inspire the organically farmed kombu seaweed base of the gin. The fresh pine is reminiscent of the scent carried across the windswept fairways. Gorse, tiny yellow flowers that grow on prickly bushes around the course, add hints of coconut flavor to the mix. Scottish heather lends floral undertones along with locally sourced lavender.
Until you can make the trek to visit St. Andrews, or perhaps to reminisce about a journey once taken to Scotland, a gin and tonic with Eden Mill captures a bit of the storied course. Golf Gin began as a limited run for the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews, but it is here to stay and widely available in Atlanta.
BERCKMANS VODKA
berckmansusa.com
@berckmansusa
EDEN MILL GOLF GIN
us.edenmill.com
@edenmill
SWEETENS COVE SPIRITS
sweetenscovespirits.com
@sweetenscovespirits
