I am a lazy gift-giver for my parents, I freely admit this. They probably deserve something a little more thoughtful and well-prepared from their son for holidays and birthdays, but in the end, life is the mild hurricane of chaos it usually is, I run out of time, get lazy, and usually my old man ends up with a bottle of whiskey (he likes whiskey, my grandad liked whiskey, I like whiskey, you get the idea) and my Mom usually ends up with a bottle of gin (she likes gin and tonics, my grandma liked gin and tonics, I like gin and tonics, you get the idea.)
This year, however, I decided to roll the dice and go outside the box a bit and that’s how my mom ended up with a very nice bottle of Japanese Gin (it was delicious by the way) and my old man ended up with a bottle of Elvis’ Midnight Snack, which proclaimed it was peanut butter, banana and bacon flavored whiskey. The fact that it was tucked away on the bottom shelf next to the Candy Corn whiskey should have been a large and very obvious red flag for me, but I figured it would either be unexpectedly delicious or completely undrinkable and there would be no middle ground.
That turned out to be not too far from the truth.
I dug around online to see who out there could have conceived such a flavor combination and found the following:
The Elvis Whiskey collection was the brainchild of Grain & Barrel a spirits company based out of Charleston, South Carolina whose portfolio includes Dixie Vodka, High Goal Luxury Gin, and the delightfully named Chicken Cock Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
Midnight Snack is described thusly:
The King of Rock & Roll might also be the inventor of the most decadent snack this side of the Mississippi, the peanut butter banana and bacon grease sandwich! Legend has it that Elvis’ longtime cook, Pauline Nicholson, may have been the first person to serve Elvis this now-famous late-night concoction and we’re sure glad she did. Midnight Snack delivers the hunka-hunka-burning love for peanut butter, banana, and bacon flavor you’ve been dreaming of.
Yes, you read that correctly. Not bacon, but bacon grease.
As we head further into the new century, Elvis is a cultural figure that’s increasingly interesting to think about. I’ve been to Graceland. It’s an interesting house. (I was bummed, in a morbid kind of way, to learn that you’re not allowed to go upstairs.) I did not, however, pay the extra fee to go across the street and tour his jet. Graceland felt like something you do if you’re in Memphis for the first time, but to me, little more than that. (The references to the Jungle Room in Marc Cohn’s hit ‘Walking In Memphis’ probably resonated with me more than Elvis himself.)
It’s going to be interesting to watch. If there’s a cultural figure who I think might be tailor-made for the new world of AI, however, it could well be Elvis.
In the meantime, I suppose I’ve gone on long enough. Time to talk about this whiskey, because, this was an experience:
Nose: Disconcerting would be the first thing that comes to mind. There’s a banana present and you can smell the peanut butter and a wee bit of the bacon underneath, but it’s… disconcerting. (The Old Man immediately said: “Wet cardboard” and you know how artificial fruit flavors can sometimes come out wrong? That would be a good primer for just how disconcerting this smell was.)
Color: I will give it this: the color is gorgeous. It’s a deep, rich, amber almost bordering on red. Some whiskies can invite you in on the strength of the color alone. This is one of them.
Body: Viscosity is on the heavier side and probably teeters on being syrupy, but it didn’t seem too heavy to me. Unfortunately, it’s very, very medicinal. Like, think cold syrup for kids and you wouldn’t be far off the mark.
Finish: To quote from an entirely different artist: do you have to let it linger? Because it lingers. Oh god, does it linger and not in a good way? There’s almost a sticky aftertaste that you can’t quite get out of your mouth. All is not lost… if you are a person whose love of Elvis and love of whiskey form a perfect circle of a Venn Diagram, buy this whiskey. You’ll probably enjoy it. I still think this has a lot of potential to be paired with desserts or ice cream and I will plant my flag in the notion that you could make a kick-ass bananas foster with this as the base alcohol. My Grade: 5/10