Kotas Reviews Southern Comfort

Ah, the New Year is here! You know what that means, finishing up all the crap you put off until the New Year! With that in mind, let's take a look at something I consumed in 2014, but didn't get around to writing about until now: Southern Comfort.

These seems neither Southern nor comforting.

I've already reviewed their entry into the eggnog realm, and that inspired me to check out the actual booze. Southern Comfort is a fruit and spice (with whiskey flavoring) liqueur originally born out of New Orleans' French Quarter by bartender Martin Wilkes Heron but now owned by a giant corporation. It comes in numerous proofings (100, 70, and 42) and versions (Special Reserve, Lime, Bold Black Cherry), but our specimen is the 70 proof original version. I most remember it from a taste long ago and those annoying "SoCo and Cran" commercials from years back. What I remember is that it is sweet. Let's see how she looks in a glass.

Yes, that is a Harvard Shot Glass. Classin' it up here at KRE!

Well, it looks...brown. This is not at all a surprise, actually. The scent is very sweet with fruit overtones and a bit of whiskey in there as well. The taste? Sweet. Super Sweet. Sickly Sweet. It is very fruity and it has some spice, but mostly what I taste is too much sweetness. It's not awful, but it is overwhelming and changes the focus of the drink from the fruit, spices, and whiskey to the sugar. This is not a good thing at all. Sweetness should accentuate other flavors, not sideline them. A little ice helped, but it was still very sweet.

Not to be deterred, I dumped it into some leftover eggnog (no, not the namesake brand). Lo and behold, it was good. Really good. I won't call it a perfect matching, but the eggnog and booze melded together very nicely and it was a fruity, spicy, boozy eggnog that was delicious. I was honestly surprised, given I was mixing sweet with sweet but gosh darn it, it worked.

On the FACE Rating System, I give Southern Comfort 1 smiley face. The flavor is nice enough if you can cut the overwhelming sweetness back, and it mixes very well (with eggnog at least), but it's not a sippin' liquor by any stretch. Unless maybe you are Willy Wonka.