Here we go. Do me a favor. Go back outside and put your AR-15 and your chest armor, and your tactical fanny pack back into your coal-rolling monster truck with the American flag airbrushed across the hood, then come back in. Good, here you are, just a strangely-bearded man in a don’t-tread-on-me t-shirt and cargo shorts asking, hat in hand, eyes wide and pleading, brain scurrying around in that empty, abandoned bookmobile of a mind, terrified someone may see you drinking a Whiskey Smash and tag you for femme on your discord thread and look. Here’s the thing, baby doll: you’re asking the wrong question.
A whiskey smash isn’t your problem. Gender reveals are passé, as passé as the chocolate shell crust of your masculinity. It’s 2022, you adorable little army of one. Masculinity is defined by a host of indicia now, a thoroughly replete card catalog of signs and tags and indicators all pointing to one’s virility. Low on that list. In fact, not really even on that list in any meaningful way, is the gender of the target market of the drink on the bar in front of you.
I keep harping on the idea that there’s no such thing as a girl drink, that girls can drink anything they damn well please and maybe ask them first. Maybe I’m missing the mark a little bit here and maybe, just maybe, I ought to lean over and whisper in your ear that a whiskey smash isn’t a manly drink either. It’s just a cocktail, sweetheart.
But you won’t hear me. You can’t. You’re so worried about being a cuck or a simp or whatever the fuck all that Reddit thread wombat urine-soaked cringy frantic blather is going on about, all so fucking worried about what defines manhood when the only thing that defines manhood is the practice of not fucking spending all your time worried about your manhood.
So sack up, son, and quit wringing your got damn hands over a drink. So what if a man ordered it for you? Shake his hand, say thanks. Open up your world. Do butt stuff. Is a whiskey smash a girly drink? No, it’s this:
- 3 lemon wedges
- 2 ounces of whiskey, preferably something with an attitude like Grass Widow from Two James in Detroit.
- 3/4 ounce of simple syrup
- 4 mint leaves, plus a sprig for garnish
Muddle those lemon wedges in the bottom of a shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients and a healthy dose of ice and shake like you shake every time you think about that one scene in Magic Mike. Strain into a rocks glass over ice. Add that mint sprig for a garnish. You’re not gay. You’re not gay.
