Kentucky Colonel – Recipe from David Embury’s ‘The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks’

No less an authority than the late G. Selmar Fougner, author of the famous Wine Trail series, vouches for the proportions of this drink as 1 part bourbon to 2 parts pineapple juice. The Kentucky colonels of my acquaintance would be more likely to reverse that proportion. Another and, to my mind, better version of this drink is 1 part Benedictine to 3 parts bourbon, stirred and decorated with a twist of lemon peel.

Before seeing this drink I couldn’t imagine any correlation between Kentucky colonel’s and pineapple, they seem to be two wildly different things whose paths is suspect seldom cross. Pineapple and bourbon in the first proportion sounds about as interesting as a vodka cranberry, so I went for Embury’s preferred version with the bourbon being the more heavily handed of the two.

Having tried it I still can’t imagine any Colonels drinking this drink, Kentucky or otherwise, it’s a rubbish lazy drink, where as I’m sure that G. Selmar Fougner, by all accounts a rather established journalist, can vouch for these proportions, it doesn’t mean it’s worth repeating to anyone, like Hennessy and Cherry Coke, I’m sure there’s an audience, I just don’t want a part of it.