Sherry!

Sherry seriously needs to make a comeback. A lot of people view it as a grandma drink (not that there's anything wrong with that!) or think it is cloyingly sweet and gross. In fact, many sherries are dry and have a beautiful complexity on par with great precision cocktails, without having to bother mixing up a cocktail (plus you can buy it at grocery stores in Oregon). I don't know much about it but it's one of my favorite things to drink. I like amontillado sherry, a fairly dry style but not as bone-dry and sour as fino. Amontillados take seriously 30 seconds to unfold and progress through their notes on your palate, going through tart, raisiny, soft-butterscotchy, and sometimes a sort of savory curry-ish note. My favorite is Lustau Amontillado, mostly because it's readily available and I can never remember the names of any others. I gave a bottle to my mom and we had it for a late-night snack paired with onion-pear kugel, which was a good match and felt fabulously grandmotherish.