A Classic? Or Just A Drink That Never Quite Went Away?

I was scouring the bar looking for something not too alcoholic for my late-afternoon tipple. This wasn’t the kind of joint that stocked amaro or sherry or any of that jazz, so an Aperol spritz was out. But then my eye fell to the bottom shelf and alit on a bottle of Seagram’s 7 American Blended Whiskey.

“Wow, how old is that Seagram’s bottle?” I asked.

“Been here since I started working here and we’ve never replaced it, but it’s getting pretty low.”

I pondered the situation. When was the last time I had a 7 & 7 (Seagram’s 7 and 7-Up, for the uninitiated)? The answer was, to the best of my recollection, never. Time to rectify that situation, stat.

7 & 7 can’t really be called a classic cocktail. It’s got three ingredients only if you count the straw, and Seagram’s 7 Crown, the booze part of the equation, is, well, lowest common denominator-type stuff. American blended whiskeys have had a lousy reputation until recent years, and with good reason — they’re mostly “grain neutral spirits,” or essentially vodka, blended with a little genuine whiskey (a mere 25% in Seagram’s case). For decades starting at the end of Prohibition, blended whiskey (mostly Canadian) was the booze of choice for Americans. When vodka started dominating the spirits market in the ‘60s and ‘70s, liquor companies started pushing lighter blends even harder.

Thankfully, those days are long gone, and whiskey drinkers like their booze to have, you know, flavor. But Seagram’s 7, along with many an old-school blend from Canada and Scotland, lingers on. According to Arthur Shapiro, whose Booze Business blog you should check out, by 1983 Seagram’s 7 had, over its lifespan, sold 300 million cases. That’s a lot of grain neutral spirits! We can only assume that they’ve passed 400 million since then; it’s still in the top 30 best-selling spirits nationwide. Now, I don’t know anyone who drinks it. I don’t even have a bottle of it at home, and I feel like I have a bottle of damn near everything. But hey, somebody must be drinking it. And on the afternoon in question, that somebody was me.

I did, to be honest, get a little grief for my choice of beverage, from a sodden consumer of happy-hour martinis who introduced himself as Spencer, and then about ten minutes later introduced himself again. That’s what too much vodka and vermouth at 4:30 in the afternoon will do to you, kids. When he found out what I was drinking, he got as offended as if I’d told him I’d seen compromising pictures of his Aunt Tilly. “What IS that? A 7 & 7??? What th’ hell are ya THINKIN’?!” Fortunately, he soon got tired of browbeating me and moved down to the other end of the bar.

7 & 7 is not a thrilling drink, but it’s certainly not unpleasant — the sweet lemon-lime soda and the dry, light whiskey make for a fine duo. And with the whiskey component at a comfortable 80 proof, I left the bar as clearheaded as when I entered (which sometimes, believe it or not, is the goal). The next time you go to your local dive bar, or any unstuffy watering hole, scout out the bottom shelf. If you see a bottle of Seagram’s 7, get the bartender to blow off the dust and break out a bottle of 7-Up, and then try it for yourself.