I am, admittedly, both a snob and an alcoholic. Given the two, most people assume I must like scotch.

But, in truth, I’ve never really been a fan. In part because taking scotch too seriously as a twenty-something always strikes me as effortful, effete. And, in part, because I’m just not a fan of the way it tastes.

Still, every gentleman needs something to drink off the rocks, to sip neat. So, for years, I’ve been making my way through golden-brown beverage choices, looking for one to call my own.

I came close with cognac – but soon found even low-end choices to be prohibitively expensive across a drink-filled night about town. Barrel-aged rum, too, seemed a near fit, until I discovered the percentage of bars that stock nothing beyond Bacardi – acceptable on the rocks as a fifth drink of the evening, though less so as a first.

A month or so back, however, I discovered a definitive answer – one already sitting in my liquor cabinet.

Colin and I were six or seven hours into a late-night editing session, synching sound for Underground, staring at monitors full of Final Cut until our eyes had long since glazed. My liquor supplies having dwindled dangerously low, and in deference to Colin’s Kentucky roots, I pulled down from the back of the cabinet a bottle of Woodford Reserve – a bottle I’d received as a gift, and had left unopened for a year and change, knowing that I don’t like bourbon.

Or, rather, believing that I don’t like bourbon. Because, it turns out, I do. A lot. Some more than others – Woodford or Makers Mark seeming much more to my taste than, say, Knob Creek.

I haven’t yet had time to sample the wide array of base-level consumer choices, much less to test out the slew of high-end options. Still, I’m already sure bourbon is it – is my drink. It tastes right. It tastes like coming home.