I have ten minutes to drink bourbon and talk to Mila Kunis about it. Efficiency and whiskey are both fantastic things in this world; Mila Kunis is arguably cooler than both. From the second I walk into the low-slung hotel suit where she’s holding bourbon court, the questions are rapid-fire.
"How old are you?" she demands. "I feel like everyone is getting younger and younger or I’m getting older and older and I no longer know what’s happening." Twenty seconds in and the unrelenting passage of time has already been addressed. If you’ve only got ten minutes for bourbon, you’ve got to leap to the good stuff. Kunis, showing off the unmistakable chops of a master bourbon spokesperson, has both made sure that I'm "of age" and briskly curated an environment of three-drinks-deep cocktail conversation.
Kunis is immersed. In Jim Beam's profuse ad campaign with her, she has been peculiarly cast as a lean whiskey historian, intensely interested in aged barrels and the weight of Kentucky gravitas. In Jim Beam commercials, she walks around with a branding iron and lionizes a patient process. The character would be grizzled, except that she's literally not grizzled. It should be a challenging role for a Ukrainian-born resident of Southern California, but she plays it well, all husky voice and warehouse swagger. She's hearty and helpful in the face of old whiskey.
But back to the aging of Mila.
"Nobody was ever younger than me and all of a sudden in a blink of an eye," she says, "When I was little, I remember thinking athletes were so much older. Now, I think, who is this 24-year-old kid? It’s weird! I’m young; I say this knowing that I’m very young."
And pop stars, singing of matters of the heart who aren’t a day over 19! Mila puts on a voice of admiration, “Taylor Swift, you know me! Taylor Swift is really good at writing heartbreak songs. It’s like a business, I need to get my heart broken every couple years I need to get a record out! I’m kidding. I love you, Taylor Swift! But, it’s like Melissa Etheridge: not to be mean, when bad things happen, you’re like, I know it’s going to be a good album. Alanis Morissette: It’s all I want, when she got her heart broken. Great things will come of this. I’m not that person, I don’t know how you take that much pain and create something beautiful out of it. I just take that pain and eat a lot of ice cream.” Speculating on the most broken-hearted balladeers of any upstanding jukebox, talking about how we digest our own wounds: It's already accomplished only three minutes into the whiskey (Jim Beam Apple, with soda).
The next seven minutes are spent on lighter fare: the most superior garnish (lemon), what to do with bourbon barrels (hang one up as a decorative dining room accent), her favorite character she's played (Jamie from Friends with Benefits, “the little fuckup that people love”), the most “mom” drink (sangria), which is more of a power move—wine or liquor-rocks (wine), ice cream in bowls or cones (cones). Ten minutes, one drink down, and over a dozen subjects addressed. Mila Kunis is a championship sprinter of bourbon talk.
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