The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

A very special day is upon us, You + Me* Readers – Robbie Burns Day! I’m assuming most of you are thinking “What?” “Who?” or “Cool…do I get that day off from work?” This fine holiday celebrates the birth of Robert Burns, the National Bard of Scotland (he wrote Auld Lang Syne!), and to answer your question, not even Scottish people get the day off from work for it, but they sure get to celebrate anyway. Robbie Burns Day is officially January 25^th but it’s usually celebrated with a big supper on the weekend before or after the 25^th.

The supper is something to be seen, it involves a Scottish feast, with plenty of haggis (yum….?), poetry readings (…yay?) and -- stay with me here—lots and lots of whisky (yum and yay!). ** If you haven’t figured it out, the whisky is what makes the poetry readings particularly marvelous. Every year, Jackalope throws a Robbie Burns Supper, but it’s morphed from what the Scots traditionally do into something….different. Our celebration usually includes vegetarian haggis (because cooking sheep innards is not one of my favorite past times); the recitations range from Burns originals to sonnets made up on the spot to Hamlet, and finally, we have a piñata. Why? Because everyone loves a piñata. Duh.

Let’s move on to the real reason we’re telling you all this: the whisky. Whisky appears in two forms at Jackalope’s Robbie Burns Supper: the golden drink itself and in our own brew, the Harry Highlander, which we age in a Jack Daniel’s Whisk(e)y Barrel. We wish we could send you all Harry Highlander to celebrate with, but as that might cause a revolt by some of our party-goers, we’ll suggest some other barrel-aged brews that would do the Bard proud:

The Bourbon Barrel Stout, by the Bluegrass Brewing Company shows off the sweetness of the bourbon in it’s aroma, but still has a nice roasty flavor. Allagash’s Curieux, is a Belgian style Tripel that is then aged in Jim Beam barrels to create a curious array of flavors and aromas. And last but certainly not least, Scotland’s own BrewDog has a whisky cask aged imperial stout by the name of Paradox that you’d be extremely lucky to get your hands on.

There are quite a few barrel-aged brews starting to make their way into the craft brew world, but these three are some of our favorites. So however you choose to celebrate your Robbie Burns Day, we think these brews will start you off in the right direction (and if you can’t find the beer, you can always just drink the scotch followed by a beer chaser – nothing wrong with that!). And don’t forget to pour a little out for Robbie…it is his birthday, after all.

** For those of you wondering why I can’t spell, Scotch “whisky” doesn’t have an “e” in the spelling. That’s how you know its’ the real thing.