I got a tip, from the cashier at the Metropolitan Avenue Trader Joe's, as he was checking me out, that Fig Newtons go really, really well with Scotch, of all things. "You've been in New Orleans, you'll appreciate this," he said, just before laying that combo on me. I was wearing my Vaughan's Lounge Tee.

So I vowed that I would try this one day, though I do not drink Scotch. I mean, who still drinks Scotch? But when someone passes along a secret code such as this, you tend to remember it.

In any case, it rattled around in my head for a bit, until I ended up in a favorite Bushwick watering hole, to see a favorite Bushwick bartender, Lucille, a bad-ass among bad-asses in this town.

I mentioned this her on Happy Hour Friday, and, as it happened, right at that moment her barback Eugene was down at the local bodega. She texted him to grab a sleeve of the Newtons. Fig Newtons are a commercial brand of what the Brits like to call fig roll.

When he returned, Lucille pulled a bottle of Scotch from the bar, which Eugene claimed was quite good. I'm sorry, I don't know what brand it was. It was "aged" Scotch. The bottle was dusty, at any rate. I'll ask next time I'm there. Lucille set it up: I tried the scotch first, then the cookie. But the strong flavor of the Scotch obliterated any taste of the fig. Following a nip of the Scotch with the bite of the cookie worked much better. We all thought it so-so.

But it was not until I posted the photo above on Instagram, that Mike Amundsen commented that he likes to dunk the fig roll into the Scotch. Which, now to think about it, is the obvious thing to do. His source for the idea? A sly reference in the 1970s television show M*A*S*H*: