"One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"
Song by George Thorogood from the album George Thorogood and the Destroyers
Released	1977 (1977)
Recorded	1977
Studio	Dimension Sound, Jamaica Plain, Boston
Genre	Blues rock
Length	8:27
Label	Rounder
Producer(s)	Terry Manning and the Delaware Destroyers
Music sample
"One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"

"One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (or "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer", its original title) is a blues song written by Rudy Toombs and recorded by Amos Milburn in 1953. It is one of several drinking songs recorded by Milburn in the early 1950s that placed in the top ten of the Billboard R&B chart. Other artists released popular recordings of the song, including John Lee Hooker in 1966 and George Thorogood in 1977.

Amos Milburn's "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer" is a mid-tempo blues song, sometimes described as a jump blues, with pop-style chord changes. It tells the story of a man who is "in a bar at closing time trying to get enough booze down his neck to forget that his girlfriend's gone AWOL, harassing a tired, bored bartender who simply wants to close up and go home into serving just one more round". During the one break in the song, Milburn implores the bartender:

One more nip and make it strong
I got to find my baby if it takes all night long
One scotch, one bourbon, one beer

The song was a hit, reaching number two in the R&B chart during a fourteen-week stay in 1953. The single lists the performers as "Amos Milburn and His Aladdin Chickenshackers" after his first number one single "Chicken Shack Boogie". Mickey Baker provided the guitar parts. Several of Milburn's contemporaries commented on his indulgence; for his part, Milburn added "I practiced what I preached".

John Lee Hooker recorded the song as "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" in 1966. Hooker transformed Milburn's song "into a vehicle for himself". He used the storyline and chorus (but altered the order), but "edited the verse down to its essentials, filled in the gaps with narrative and dialogue, and set the whole thing to a rocking cross between South Side shuffle and signature boogie". Part of Hooker's narrative included:

And then I sit there, drinkin', gettin' high, mellow, knocked out, feelin' good
About that time I looked on the wall, at the old clock on the wall
About that time it was ten-thirty then, I looked down the bar at the bartender, he said
'What do you want, Johnny?', one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer

Hooker's version is notated as a medium tempo blues with an irregular number of bars in 4/4 time in the key of E. It was recorded in Chicago in 1966 with Hooker on vocal and guitar, pianist Lafayette Leake, guitarist Eddie "Guitar" Burns, drummer Fred Below, and an unknown bass player. The song was released on Hooker's 1966 The Real Folk Blues album and he later recorded several live renditions of the song. A live version with Muddy Waters' band recorded at the Cafe Au Go Go on August 30, 1966, has been described as "dark, slow, swampy-deep, and the degree of emotional rapport between Hooker and the band (particularly Otis Spann) [is] nothing less than extraordinary".

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