🥃 The One That Rules Them All

🔥 Pour #2: Happenstance Founder’s Edition Straight Bourbon

Some bourbons bring the heat. This one brings heritage.
This week’s pour is a salute to bold beginnings—and a reminder that legacy starts with fire, not flash.

🔥 Some Fires Start with a Whisper

A few summers back, I found myself wandering through Nashville—not lost, just curious. It was one of those sticky evenings where the air hums and the city smells like fresh biscuits and trouble.

Down a side street, tucked behind a bakery, I found a small distillery. A woman named Tara stepped outside carrying boxes. We got to talking—about barrels, beginnings, and how sometimes, the best things happen by accident.

Then came the pour.

It was their Founder’s Edition. Four years old, but bold like something twice its age.
Hazelnut. Toasted oak. A honeyed finish that felt like southern hospitality in a glass.

And I thought:
“This isn’t whiskey trying to be fancy. This is whiskey that remembers where it came from.”

🥃 The Weekly Pour: Happenstance Founder’s Edition

• Distillery: Happenstance Distilling Co. (Nashville, TN)

• Age: 4 years

• Proof: 90

• Tasting Notes:

  • Nose: Vanilla, toffee, baking spice

  • Palate: Hazelnut, honey, toasted caramel

  • Finish: Smooth, sweet, and warm like a fire’s last ember

🎯 Get a bottle here: Buy from Happenstance

🍸 The Art of Mixing: The Nashville Ember

This cocktail was made for front porches and fire pits—something smoky, sweet, and smooth as a slide guitar.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Happenstance Founder’s Edition

• ¾ oz smoked maple syrup

• 2 dashes orange bitters

• Orange peel garnish

• Optional: Smoked glass finish (pecan or hickory)

How to Make It:

1. Stir all ingredients with ice

2. Strain into a rocks glass over a single large cube

3. Express the orange peel and drop it in

4. Smoke the glass if you want that “wow” factor

Flavor Profile:
Like roasted marshmallows and pecan pie dancing through vanilla oak.

🍗 Flavor Pairing Picks

This bourbon—and that cocktail—plays beautifully with:

• Glazed pork chops – That savory caramel crust meets its match

• Mini pecan pies or bourbon-butter cookies – Sweet-on-sweet done right

• Clove cigars – Adds warmth and spice without overpowering

💡 Big Lesson: Heat with Heart

The Founder’s Edition doesn’t demand the spotlight—it earns it.
It’s confident. It’s elegant. And it reminds us:

You don’t have to be old to be wise. You just have to be crafted with care.

🥃 Repeatable Proverb

“Confidence doesn’t shout—it sips.”

🚨 Friday: It All Comes Down to This

We’ve counted down from #12 through rebels, angels, oaks, and smoke.
Now it’s time to crown summer’s champion pour.

This Friday, we reveal #1: The Porch Pour—the slow-sippin’, memory-making, conversation-starting bourbon that closes the season with style.

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📬 Got thoughts on this pour?
Save this article. Share it. Or send it to someone who needs a little fire in their glass.

🥃 Stay bold, stay smooth, and let the flame linger.

Cheers,
Ethan “Neat” Whitmore

P.S. The Porch Pour drops this Friday. It’s oak, it’s smooth, and it might just become your new signature bottle.