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So, you might think this is going to be a post about boats and bacon or seafaring bacon or even bacon life preservers or something, but no, when I say going overboard, I mean too much bacon.
New York Magazine has a recipe for a Bacon-Infused Old Fashion from PDT. Part one of the recipe is making Bacon Bourbon.
Here is where I am torn: Bacon and Bourbon are two flavors that go really well together. I know this from mixing up some Bourbon Maple Syrup and pouring it all over my waffles and bacon. Great flavors. The richness of the bourbon complements the smokiness of the bacon really nicely.
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I made a change or two this weekend- Our liquor reviews (of which we have a handful coming up) will now all be identifiable by the title of the post, they’ll all be titled “At The Bar:” followed by the type of booze we are reviewing. In the past we have hit Gin and Tequila and Beer, today we have Bourbon.
Back in May I had heard about the Tuthilltown Spirits, a small distillery in upstate New York producing New York’s first bourbons, ryes, rums and vodkas since prohibition. I mentioned them here and tried to hunt down a bottle to try myself. It seemed like every time I went looking or heard about the release of their new batch of Baby Bourbon I was already too late. My local wine shop/liquor store September was already sold out of the small batches. I ended up stepping up my search and contacted the distillery directly.
I finally got my bottle of Baby Bourbon last week and was able to sit down to enjoy a glass on Friday. Now, I admit, I am not a huge bourbon drinker, in fact most of my previous experience with bourbon have been either Jim Beam or Maker’s Mark, both massed produced and both aiming to appeal to the greatest number of folks (which usually means the flavors are a bit generic).
Tuthilltown’s Hudson Baby Bourbon, besides being the only bourbon produced in New York, also use 100% New York grown corn, it is aged in charred American Oak barrels and has a truly distinct flavor. The small batch bourbon comes in distinct little bottles with cork stoppers sealed with wax. Each bottle is labeled and then number by hand, which kind of gives you a feel of the artisanal process of pot distilling whiskey. Read more »
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Ever heard of a Manhattan? It’s made of whiskey, vermouth and bitters.
Now most of us read that and think “What the hell do any of those ingredients have to do with Manhattan?” Or at least I did. Then I did a bit of reading and found out that New York used to produce a fair bit of whiskey and other liquors. Now it’s time for a little history lesson: In 1825 New York had over 1000 distilleries. Probably nothing the size of the Makers Mark or Jack Daniels distilleries in the South, but New York was producing its fair share of booze. Then close to 100 years later prohibition wiped them all out. Currently New York is down to 13 distilleries. One of the reason’s for this was probably that until 2002 it cost $50,000 for an industrial Class A Liquor License. In 2002 there were some changes made, one of which dropped the price for the license to just under $1,500 as long as you don’t produce over 35,000 gallons of the hooch.
Now that the brief history lesson is over we are brought to the pulp of this post. In 2002 Tuthilltown Spirits started to distill its own spirits. They are the only whiskey distillers in New York and make all of their whiskeys, bourbons and ryes with New York State ingredients. They make small batches which they hand bottle and are only sold in select shops around the city. Their April “Baby Bourbon” has just hit stores and restaurants and their rye whiskey was just released earlier this month. this marks the first time rye whiskey has been distilled in New York since before prohibition. actually let me rephrase that, this is the first time it has been legally produced in New York, since before prohibition. If you like your drink, it sounds like this is something worth hunting for.
