Beer and wine certainly have the run of the alcoholic festival circuit. Home brewers competitions, wine tastings, entire dinners built out of dishes incorporating beer -- the list goes on. But there's no reason whiskey shouldn't share some of that spotlight.
Whiskey is a unique booze. In the popular imagination it spans an enormous cultural gulf, from gnarled truckers to English aristocracy. If Mad Men is to be believed the Old Fashioned is the only thing anyone in the 1960s used for hydration, which would explain the cumulative hangover that turned into the '70s. A night of tribute is well overdue.
Saturday, November 23, is the second annual Dallas Whiskey & Fine Spirits Festival presented by CBS Radio and Sigel's Fine Wine & Great Spirits at the Fashion Industry Gallery. Their website boasts the fest will be "reminiscent of the Great Gatsby era," because nothing spices up a party like the looming threat of the police raiding a speakeasy.
While the costumes and aesthetics are sure to be lovely, it's funny that an event dedicated to hard liquor would choose as its theme a book that has, spoilers, a car accident as one of its central events. Hopefully everyone attending will have better sense than Daisy and hail a cab if need be.
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The fest will also feature swing music, gambling, a cigar lounge and food from Whiskey Cake, Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House and more. Individual tickets are $75 for general admission and $100 for VIP, all available here.