There are a hundred ways to enjoy a good bourbon, and most of them take under a minute. You don't need a bar cart, a shelf of liqueurs, or a cocktail book to drink bourbon well. You need a decent bottle, a glass, and a sense of what goes with what.
This is a guide to the everyday end of bourbon — the neat pours, the rocks, and the simple mixed drinks that make up the vast majority of how people actually drink it. If you want full cocktail recipes, we've got those too, and we'll point you to them. But start here.
Drinking Bourbon Neat
"Neat" means bourbon poured straight into a glass at room temperature — no ice, no water, no mixer. It's the way to taste exactly what a distiller made, and it's how we taste every batch before it leaves the building.
Pour about an ounce and a half into a glass. A tulip-shaped glass concentrates the aroma, but a rocks glass works fine. Give it a sniff, take a small sip, and let it sit on your tongue before swallowing. The first thing you'll notice is the sweetness from the corn, then the spice from the rye or the softness from wheat, then the vanilla and caramel the charred oak barrel gives up over years of aging.
When to Add a Few Drops of Water
A few drops of water — not a splash, a few drops — can open a bourbon up, especially a higher-proof one. The water breaks the surface tension and releases aromas the alcohol was holding back. Try a bourbon neat first, then add a couple of drops and taste again. You'll often find more going on. This is the single best trick for getting more out of a bottle, and it costs nothing.
Bourbon on the Rocks
Ice does two things: it chills the bourbon and it slowly dilutes it. Both can be good. The cold tamps down the alcohol burn, and a little dilution softens a hot, high-proof pour into something easier to sip.
The catch is the ice itself. Small cubes melt fast and water your drink down before you've finished it. One large cube or sphere melts slowly, so it cools the bourbon while keeping the flavor intact longer. If you drink bourbon on the rocks often, a silicone mold for big cubes is a few dollars well spent.
A bourbon with some smoke to it, like our Smoked Straight Bourbon, is especially good on a single rock — the chill rounds off the edges and lets the smoke settle in.
Easy Two-Ingredient Bourbon Drinks
This is where most bourbon actually gets consumed: poured over ice and topped with something fizzy or sweet. These are highballs, and they're the most reliable drinks you can make. Two ingredients, a glass of ice, ten seconds.
The standard ratio is about 2 ounces of bourbon to 4–6 ounces of mixer over ice. Adjust to taste.
Bourbon and Cola
The classic. The cola's sweetness and spice wrap around the bourbon's oak, and the two have been keeping each other company for generations. A squeeze of lime lifts it. Use a flavorful bourbon — cola can bury a weak one.
Bourbon and Ginger
Bourbon and ginger ale is crisp and easy; bourbon and ginger beer (spicier, less sweet) is even better and gives you something close to a Kentucky Mule. Ginger is bourbon's most dependable mixer — the heat plays off the sweetness perfectly. Add a lime wedge and you've got a drink that works year-round.
Bourbon, Lemonade, and Sweet Tea
Bourbon and lemonade is a porch drink for hot afternoons — tart, sweet, and refreshing. Combine bourbon with equal parts lemonade and sweet tea and you have a so-called "Front Porch" or half-and-half that's dangerously drinkable in Kansas summer heat. Go easy; it tastes like iced tea but it isn't.
Bourbon and Soda
The most understated of the bunch. Bourbon topped with plain soda water over ice keeps the bourbon front and center while adding a little lift and dilution. It's the move when you want a long, low-key drink that still lets a good bourbon do the talking. A wheated bourbon like our Bud & Dewey's shines here because nothing's covering it up.
A Few Crowd-Pleasers Worth the Extra Step
When you want something a notch above a highball but still simple, three classics deliver every time.
- Old Fashioned — bourbon, sugar, bitters, and an orange peel. The oldest cocktail there is, and still the best argument for bourbon.
- Whiskey Sour — bourbon, fresh lemon juice, and a little simple syrup, shaken and poured over ice. Bright and balanced.
- Hot Toddy — bourbon, hot water, honey, and lemon. The cold-weather standby and a genuine comfort when you're feeling under the weather.
Each of these is a three-ingredient drink you can build without special tools. For the exact measurements and a handful more, see our guide to classic bourbon cocktail recipes, or start with the simplest 2-3 ingredient bourbon drinks if you're new to mixing.
A Few Things That Make Any Bourbon Drink Better
None of these are fussy, and all of them are free or close to it.
- Use fresh citrus. A squeeze of fresh lemon or lime in a highball or sour beats the bottled stuff every time. Bottled juice tastes flat and slightly metallic, and it's the difference between a good drink and a great one.
- Mind your ice. Big cubes melt slowly and dilute less. The half-melted cubes from the back of the freezer water a drink down fast and can carry freezer-burn flavors. Fresh ice is worth the thirty seconds.
- Chill the glass for cold drinks. A few minutes in the freezer keeps a rocks pour or a highball colder longer, which matters more than any garnish.
- Don't drown a good bottle. If you spent money on a bourbon you like, taste it before you reach for the mixer. Sometimes a single rock is all it wants.
Which Bourbon for Which Drink
The bourbon you reach for should match what you're making.
- Neat or with a few drops of water: Pour something you genuinely want to taste. A single-barrel or a bourbon with a distinct mash bill rewards close attention.
- On the rocks: A higher-proof or smoked bourbon stands up to the chill and dilution without fading.
- In a highball (cola, ginger, soda): A flavorful, everyday bourbon. You're stretching it with a mixer, so a softer wheated bourbon blends in cleanly while a rye-forward one pushes more spice through the mixer.
- In a cocktail (Old Fashioned, Sour): A rye-forward bourbon like our Straight Bourbon gives the backbone these drinks need against sugar, citrus, and bitters.
What makes any of these a bourbon in the first place is set by federal law: at least 51% corn, aged in new charred oak, distilled in the U.S., and bottled at 80 proof or more. The TTB's distilled spirits product categories spell out the full standard. Everything from a neat pour to a bourbon and cola starts from that same baseline.
A quick word on pacing: a standard drink is about 1.5 ounces of 80-proof bourbon, and many of our bourbons run higher than that, so a generous pour adds up faster than you'd think. Drink the good stuff slowly — that's the whole point of good stuff.
The best way to figure out which of our bourbons suits your favorite drink is to taste them side by side. Come book a tour and tasting at our Marquette distillery, tell us how you like to drink bourbon, and we'll point you to the right bottle.