Boilermaker

The original beer-and-a-shot combo that's fueled dive bars for generations. Drop the whiskey in or sip alongside—either way, it's honest drinking at its finest.

The Boilermaker — whiskey served alongside a beer chaser — is one of America's most enduring drinking traditions, rooted in the working-class culture of 19th-century industrial America. The drink takes its name from the skilled tradesmen who built and maintained steam boilers for locomotives, ships, and factories during the industrial era — workers who endured brutal physical conditions and favored the combination of a whiskey shot and beer as an efficient post-shift restorative. Early accounts place the combination in the mining towns of Butte, Montana, in the 1890s. By the early 20th century the pairing was known informally as beer and whiskey in American saloons. In the 1930s the combination acquired the name Boilermaker and His Helper, with the whiskey as the boilermaker and the beer as the helper, eventually shortened simply to Boilermaker by the 1940s. The format has persisted as a symbol of American working-class identity and the uncomplicated satisfaction of two complementary drinks served side by side.