You can mix bourbon with vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon with vanilla sauce, or bourbon with cinnamon cream and sugar.
But what about the classic cocktail that has served the nation for more than a century: cherry liquor?
The story goes that the first bartenders of Buffalo Trace distillery in 1911, and the first cocktail bar to open in Chicago, tried cherry limes and the fruit in their drinks, and thought it was so delicious, they named the Buffalo Trace Distillery Cherry Liqueur.
In 1930, after the first bar opened in New York City, a bartender named Jim Davis was invited to work at the Buffalo Trailers by a friend of his who was also a whiskey bar owner.
Davis said that he was interested in making cocktails, and after working at the bar, he started to work on his own creations.
He later founded Buffalo Trace Spirits, which he owned and operated until he died in 2013.
Davis, who also owned and worked at the legendary Buffalo Trace Hotel and Casino in New Orleans, said he enjoyed experimenting with flavors and mixing drinks, which were all based on his experiences as a bartender at the hotels.
“My own flavor and cocktail history, which started in the 1920s, is not very well documented, but it certainly started in Buffalo Trace,” Davis said in an interview with the Buffalo News.
Davis, who is survived by his wife and two sons, worked on the first Buffalo Trace bar, which opened in 1930, in Buffalo, New York.
He is survived at home by his daughter, Kathy; his wife, Mary; and his son, John, and granddaughter, Jessica.
The family of James B. Davis had a big influence on Buffalo Trace spirits.
His son, James B., was the head of the Buffalo Rum Company at the time, and he was the first president of the New York Rum Society.
His grandson, James M., is now a director of the Distillery.
When the Buffalo-based company went bankrupt in the early 1970s, the family bought it, and continued to work there until it closed in 2003.
“James Davis, of course, has been a mentor to all of us, and his passion for the spirits he created and the people he worked with in the distillery has been the same for all of our spirits since the beginning,” the family said in a statement.
“My grandfather always said, ‘You get what you pay for, and we get what we pay for.’
That’s what makes us who we are,” said Shannon Davis, whose mother, Nancy Davis, has also been a bartender for nearly 40 years.
The bitters were made in the Buffalo Valley Distillery, which sits on the outskirts of Buffalo, near the town of Cherry Hill.
According to the company’s website, the bitters are distilled from the sweet cherry liquesseur that James Davis first introduced to Buffalo in 1915.
The Buffalo Trace family has also produced a number of liqueurs, including Cherry Lime Lime and Blueberry Raspberry Liqueurs.