Since September is national Bourbon Month, we had a patriotic obligation to check out the Crown Wine & Spirits 3rd Annual Fort Lauderdale Bourbon Affair. Afterall, anything less would have been un-American, right?

Crown did a great job of transforming their Fort lauderdale store into a giant tasting room with tasting stations throughout. Besides the sampling of some of the bourbons and whiskeys available in the stores, they served up some of the gourmet foods available at Crown too. One of the tables had a thin sliced salami that was simply incredable.

While we simply weren't able to try all of the 75-plus whiskeys being sampled at the two hour event (that'd work out to one every 1.6 minutes), we did get to try some really exceptional ones as well as meet some interesting people who were passionate about their whiskey.

Besides the expected Kentucky and Tennessee whiskeys, a number of other states where represneted too. We noticed whiskey from New York, Texas, Wisconsin and Vermont, I'm not going to comment on everything that we tried but I really enjoed WhistlePig's Straight Rye Whiskey, Maker Mark's Cask Strength, Woodford's Double Oaked, Widow Jane, William Wolf Pecan and of course, Pumpkin Seasonal Whiskey by Great Lakes Distilling.in Wisc.