My wedding was less than two months away, and I was still dodging the second Big Question, "What about your bachelor party?" It's always the married ones that ask, and I just hemmed and hawed. My fiancée didn't care if I went to a strip club, but I did. The version of myself that would have done that wasn't marriage material so why celebrate him? As my wedding date loomed, I decided to take a different approach. At first, my friends jokingly dubbed my bachelor party a "Manshower." (And, as an aside, I made a hell of a lot of brownie points with wives and girlfriends, which I plan to cash in on at a later date for a guys' trip to Cuba, or something equally terrifying to our better halves.)

My "Manshower" was a night of Scotch tasting and bowtie lessons at Los Angeles' Carondelet House. Ten of my closest guy friends and I refined our Scotch palates in leather club chairs and went to battle with vintage silk in antique mirrors. We sipped an 18-year-old Single Malt––distilled the year I graduated high school––while the owner of a local bowtie maker, Boutaugh, coached us through loops and pinches to the perfect knot. I figured knowing your whisky and tying a bowtie both fell on the list, along with driving stick and changing a tire, of things every man should know. And it's a lot easier for men to listen and learn in the absence of exposed breasts.

"This is the most… different… bachelor party I've ever been to. It's perfect for you," said a married screenwriter friend, grinning over a bowtie sewn from a bolt of vintage Gucci silk.

The night was capped off by ten bow-tied gents raising glasses of Macallan Rare Cask and roasting me with a toast. I'm certain the women they went home to were grateful for the lack of contact body glitter. And best of all, I'll be able to look them all in the eyes at the wedding.

Here are a few out-of-the-box bachelor party ideas to creatively mark the rite of passage from fiancé to husband and wingmen to groomsmen:

Explore the Great Outdoors

Channel your inner Bear Grylls with Wilderness Collective, a West Coast outfit offering small groups of adventurous men the chance to go horse trekking, snowmobiling, mountaineering, sailing, and off-road motocross riding.

Wilderness Collective

Hit the Track

Zip into a jumpsuit, strap on a helmet, and go head-to-head with your groomsmen on one of the most beautiful tracks in the country––Laguna Seca––on the Monterrey Peninsula, at Skip Barber Driving School.

Skip Barber

Go to Sniper School

Head to the Arizona desert for a five day military-approved Sniper/Counter Sniper course taught by Marine Snipers at GPS Defense Sniper School in Phoenix, Arizona.

Take a Ride

Broaden your options for future midlife-crisis toys with a motorcycle license, and enroll your friends in a weekend basic rider course. Even if you don't see a bike in your future, a motorcycle license is a pretty cool thing to have in your wallet.

MSF

Head to Cuba

And finally, the coolest bachelor party of all time –– take advantage of loosening travel restrictions and head to Hemingway's favorite port-of-call: Havana. Get dazed on daiquiris in the El Floridita bar, where the drink was invented; see Hemingway's fishing boat, Pilar, in the flesh outside his former home; and stroll the balmy streets of crumbling colonial facades while puffing freshly rolled Cuban cigars. Tour groups with legal access can be found at abercrombiekent.com and insightcuba.com.

InsightCuba

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