CL-060 Gabrielle Pharms Orders Her Texas Bourbon Neat, Please

Our Beer and a Shot series, made in partnership with Miller High Life, asks our contributors to get to know a city. Each piece brings together a bartender and a spirit to tell the story of a particular locale—and uses the relationship between the two to characterize residents' unique drinking styles and preferences. As a result, the reader gets to see into the heart of a place through an intimate lens—and discover a perspective that's otherwise the province of locals and longtime residents. Freelance spirits, entertainment, and lifestyle writer Gabrielle Pharms contributed the latest entry to our Beer and a Shot series, and she brought together two things you might not necessarily associate with each other: Texas and whiskey. Though whiskey is most commonly linked with states like Tennessee and Kentucky, the Lone Star State is becoming a key destination for the spirit—bourbon in particular. For Gabrielle, who is a Houston native but now lives in Austin, this change is exciting. She's a longtime whiskey fan, and was the person who, even in her early twenties, felt comfortable drinking bourbon neat. Her perspective reveals just as much about a state's changing alcohol identity as it does the bartender and spirit she profiles—in this case, Kelsey Caudebec of The Tigress Pub and Milam & Greene Distillery. Here's Gabrielle.