Forget the milk. If you’re paying $5 for a box of Girl Scout Cookies, you better be dunking it in bourbon. Here are the perfect bourbon pairings for everything from Thin Mints to Samoas.
Girl Scouts are the biggest pushers since Pablo Escobar’s untimely death in in ’93. You want your cookie fix? You gotta go through them. More accurately, you have to go through your boss who’s selling them for his daughter even though that defeats the entire marketing campaign of the overpriced cookies. This is the world we live in though, so you might as well extract maximum value by dunking them in bourbon.
Thin Mints & Makers Mark 46
People who argue Thin Mints aren’t the best cookie in the jar need to check themselves before they wreck themselves. Which other can you eat warm or frozen with equal satisfaction? A frozen Thin Mint is summer’s ultimate snack, so I paired with Makers Mark 46 to create an abomination of summer’s ultimate cocktail, the Mint Julep. Just don’t spank the cookie. It’s creepy and won’t bring out any extra flavor.
Thank U Berry Munch & Knob Creek Single Barrel
This is probably the worst cookie ever made, but I’m trying to be healthy and the cranberries allow me to justify eating a whole box of them. Knob Creek Single Barrel has a perfect level of sweetness to contrast the tartness of the berries, and the orange peel is a great compliment. This is top level culinary stuff here, guys. That or I may be trying to drown Thank U Berry Munch‘s bad taste in 120-proof pudding.
Do-si-dos / Peanut Butter Sandwich & Bulleit
Ahh yes, our first dual-named cookie. Can’t the bakers just get along? Oatmeal cookies remind me of sadness, so Do-si-dos need a little help to make them worthwhile. That kick comes in the form of Bulleit Bourbon. I love spicy peanuts, so the spiciness that comes from the high rye content is the perfect addition to these peanut butter sandwiches.
Side Note: What happens when two people with hyphenated last names get married? We’re on a dark road to excessive nomenclature.
Trefoils / Shortbread & Larceny
Shortbread cookies were invented by parents who didn’t love their kids. The only way to salvage them is to crank up the vanilla so they actually have taste. That’s where a wheated bourbon like Larceny comes into play. The combination of high wheat content and 6+ years of aging really helps bring out the vanilla so you might just be able to get through a couple dry Trefoils. Add in a little water to amplify the effect even more.
Peanut Butter Patties / Tagalongs & Jim Beam Single Barrel
Tagalongs sound like something I would create, which makes them top notch in my book. Huge peanut butter flavor is the real player here, so it makes sense to find a big bourbon with very subtle peanut flavors. Jim Beam Single Barrel fits the bill perfectly. It has subtle chocolate and peanut notes, which should be amplified by the cookie, while the 95-proof allows the bourbon to not get embarassingly backed into a corner by a bunch of little Girl Scouts.
Prichard’s Double Chocolate Bourbon – Samoas
Samoas are the wildcard in the Girl Scout Cookie family. Their appeal is purely dependent on your feelings about coconut, but what a lovely bunch of coconuts it is. Their only downfall is the extreme shortcoming of that tiny chocolate drizzle, so I’m applying an equally wild card with Prichard’s Double Chocolate Bourbon. Sure, it’s sort of cheating, but it’s my list, and I’ll do what I want. If the cookies aren’t going to give me enough chocolate rain, I’m happy to find it somewhere else.
Tip of the drinking hat to @borderlinephil for inspiring this. Turns out he probably just saw it here though.