It’s good to pray for others, especially for folks you’d prefer to run over with your car. Admittedly, those prayers are harder to fashion. Still, when you just don’t know what to say in such moments, especially at 2:00 in the morning, instead of wandering around inside your head, the Psalms are a great place to start. I have plenty of Psalms memorized. Psalm 27 is one. Psalm 34 is another. I can call these up relatively easily.

There are others I have memorized, too. I call on them from time to time. For example, on many occasions, I feel the urge to pray Psalm 109 for a particularly well-groomed gent and his friends who rev their truck engines at all hours of the day. Indeed, you’ll know these young men’s doings at noon just as you’ll know them at midnight. They’re fine upstanding citizens who never fail to demonstrate genuine concern for young and old. Their language is colorful. Their trucks’ bumper stickers bespeak honorability. Their bantering betrays the same. Truly, these young men are all but assured a place in the human record as some of mankind’s best.

Their parents should be proud.

Firstly, looking back at what I’ve just written, I hope the sarcasm is easily detectable. Secondly, I realize there will be those who read and reply, “Boys will be boys.” Yes, boys will be boys. But for a season. Boys exist on a trajectory. Boys are to become men. If a boy does not become a man—and as such, become the proper demonstration of a respect-worthy man for future generations—from the natural law’s perspective, he is lost. In his lostness, he becomes another kind of metric. All other boys who’ve become men must refer him to their children as a behavioral aberration to mark and avoid. In other words, he is not what a man should be; therefore, he is not what a husband and father should be. Avoid him so you do not become like him, thereby, unfortunately, extending his nature’s days. Instead, “May his days be few…. may his name be blotted out in the second generation” (Psalm 109:8, 13).

In some ways, this truth applies to whisky. Some are boys who will forever be boys, and thusly, should be avoided. Scoresby Scotch is the bottom-shelf, engine-revving example that comes to mind. Scoresby is bottled uselessness. However, at the other end of the spectrum exists the likes of Compass Box, most notably, the thoughtfully named Canvas edition.

A portrait of whisky-making’s grandest hues, Canvas demonstrates maturity. The Canvas foretells its potential with an initial nose of earl gray, lemon citrus, and maybe even a little bit of salt. A few drops of water convert the lemons to grapefruits.

The palate is a creamy swath of oily butter and honey. The citrus from the nose remains. A few sips into the dram, the citrus becomes more berry-like, staying through the lengthier but soothing finish.

While imprecatory petitions like Psalm 109 are equally available at all hours to a troubled soul, especially when burdened by the most annoying among us, another Psalm I mentioned—Psalm 34—is available, too. It’s a calming Psalm of thanksgiving and most appropriate to the Compass Box Canvas edition.

When awakened at 2:00 in the morning by the sounds of revving truck engines, I recommend combining the two. Praying the Psalms while sipping a comforting whisky is a sure way to avoid a more primitive demonstration of manhood that could land you in jail.