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Bourbon Collage at Its Best

By: Carrie Bertschy

By Carrie BertschyPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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"Bourbon at Its Best" by Carrie Bertschy

People who love to drink bourbon whiskey might like the idea of this collage. For myself, I don't mind occasionally having an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan. I have been bartending, as a side job, for weddings, banquets, or special events. Working as a side bartender, you could come up with some ideas to use as a mixed media artist. I came up with the idea of this bourbon collage that I titled "Bourbon at Its Best". This bourbon collage was put together with canvas board, decoupage, glue gun, fiskars scissors, acrylic paints, paper images, and red beads. It was an idea that came during the pandemic while I was not bartending due to lockdown. It is not a difficult project and the idea made me think back to some of my family members who like to drink bourbon whiskey on occasion.

Before I get started on how the collage was made, I thought I would share how to make an Old Fashioned with the bourbon whiskey. Here are the ingredients you will need in order to make an Old Fashioned: two orange slices, two or three maraschino cherries, a 1/2 tsp of water, 1 tsp of sugar or simple syrup, 3 dashes of Angostura bitters, ice cubes, and 2 ozs of bourbon whiskey. The tools you will need are: a rocks glass, a muddler, and a toothpick for the garnish. You start by putting an orange slice, two maraschino cherries, 3 dashes of Angostura bitters, and some sugar (1 tsp) in the bottom of the rocks glass. With all those ingredients in the bottom of the glass, you would use a muddler to smash and mix up the orange slice, the two cherries, bitters, and sugar. After you finish muddling the ingredients, put some ice cubes in the rocks glass and choose which bourbon whiskey you would like to pour over top of it. Some of the bourbon whiskeys you could try in the Old Fashioned are: Bullet, Evan Williams, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, Pappy Van Winkle, and plenty of other bourbons I could name on the list. For the garnish, you can put an orange slice and maraschino cherry on a toothpick to lean into the side of the glass with the bourbon. Kentucky is known as the capital state of bourbon whiskey and a visit to a distillery would be a great opportunity to learn more about how bourbon whiskey is created on a daily basis. As a bartender, that is how I would put together an Old Fashioned for a guest at the bar. Now, that you know how to make the bourbon whiskey drink, we can start to move onto how the bourbon collage was put together with all of the materials.

For the beginning of this bourbon collage, you will need a canvas board, a black marker, scissors, newspaper and bourbon images, a brush, and mod podge. On the canvas board, you brush mod podge all over the canvas. The first images, you will cut with scissors and decoupage onto the canvas, are the newspaper ones as the background. Make sure to cut them with the scissors in the size of the canvas. Next, you can place the bourbon images on top and decoupage them onto the surface. After the decoupaged surface is dry, you draw, with a black marker, where you want each item to go on the canvas. I drew where I wanted to paint the Old Fashioned glass and sign, the cigar, and the little barrel. I had decided to outline where I thought the painting areas could go on the collage.

After the outlining is finished, you can start painting with the acrylic paint for your bourbon themed collage. I painted a Old Fashioned drink along with a sign, a cigar, and a small barrel. The Old Fashioned drink was the part that took the longest to paint because there were more colors and features to it. The acrylic paint is better than oils because it does not take a long time to dry onto the canvas. Once the acrylic paint is dry and it is to your liking, you can move on to the last step- gluing the red beads.

The red beads are one of the garnishes you would find in an Old Fashioned- the maraschino cherries. In my opinion, you can never have too many cherries for an Old Fashioned on the canvas board, but in reality, you usually only receive two or three cherries in the bourbon whiskey drink. In order to put on the red beads or form of maraschino cherries, I took a glue gun and attached the them in various places around the decoupage canvas board. As long as you have enough glue sticks, you should be fine with putting the red beads onto the canvas. By using the red beads, it was a great way to express my opinion about maraschino cherries and an Old Fashioned bourbon drink together for the collage.

"Bourbon at Its Best" was a different type of collage I came up as a mixed media artist. I felt it was a way to show my bartending side along with the artist side. It is a great way to enjoy bourbon without actually drinking it. You basically are putting in another form. Scissors are essential when it comes to making collages and I recommend them on hand while putting together one. Try an alcoholic drink collage. What is your favorite alcoholic drink? That would be the one to try as a collage. Bourbon whiskey is what I had established to put as one of them. In the future, I hope to come up with some others to add into my art collection of alcoholic drinks.

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