Bacon & Bourbon’s six bartenders share their recipes ahead of the big night
If you’ve landed at pitch.com in recent days, you’ve probably noticed that The Pitch is about to bring, like, a truckload of bacon and bourbon into your life. Thursday, April 16, our second-annual Bacon & Bourbon festival goes down. And we’ve added something new: the Cocktail Corner, where six local bartenders are working up six original, limited-edition bourbon cocktails.
That means I’ve sampled a lot of bourbon beverages this month, the better to brief you on your B&B prospects (and tell you how to make some of this stuff at home). Behold, friends, the fruit of my laborious boozing.
The bartender: Tommy Palmer, Blvd Tavern
The drink: Springtime and the Livin’s Easy
The bourbon: Devil’s Cut bourbon
Devil’s Cut is a heavy, oaky, spice-forward bourbon from Jim Beam, and here it plays well with fresh grapefruit juice, maraschino liqueur and Peychaud’s Bitters.
“Since the Devil’s Cut is so strong, I wanted a flavor that was going to be able to contend with it, but also something springtime-y and fun,” Palmer says. “I like the complexion and color of it. It’s a nice patio cocktail.”
Make it:
2 ounces Devil’s Cut
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1 ounce fresh ruby red grapefruit
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
1/3 ounce simple syrup
The bartender: Kenny Cohrs, Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar, Liquid Minded Concepts
The drink: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
The bourbon: Four Roses Bourbon
Fact: Kenny Cohrs is incapable of making a bad drink.
Cohrs, who has poured at a few local hot spots, is bar manager at Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar. He’s also a partner in Liquid Minded Concepts, and he comes to B&B wearing both hats but pouring just one great drink: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It features bacon fat–washed bourbon, orange juice, grenadine, honey syrup and bitters.
“I wanted to do something that’s a little bit more savory and breakfast-friendly or brunch-y, rather than just simply having a bloody mary,” Cohrs tells me.
But washing bourbon in bacon fat requires a few days’ prep work, and it’s not for every kitchen, so Cohrs has provided The Pitch with an alternate drink, the Yellow Ribbon. (I think it deserves a blue ribbon: It’s crisp and refreshing and perfectly balanced.)
Make it:
2 ounces Four Roses Yellow
1/2 ounce fresh-squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce house-made grenadine
1 barspoon honey syrup
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
The bartender: Chelsea Almeida, Affäre
The drink: Strudel Deux
The whiskey: 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey
The first thing Affäre’s bar manager, Chelsea Almeida, offers me when I stop by is not a beverage but a spoonful of a gooey, lumpy, brown mixture.
“I made this bacon-raisin jam,” she tells me. “I’m not sure how it turned out.”
I can smell it from across the bar, and she holds up a teeny-tiny teaspoon for me as I approach. I’m rewarded with an intense taste of something sweet, spicy and delightfully fatty.
This is Almeida’s garnish for the Strudel Deux, a toasty take on a whiskey sour.
“I wanted to use spices but still make a refreshing drink,” Almeida tells me as she begins mixing ingredients. “Nutmeg is a really prevalent spice in German cooking, and I was inspired by that and our apple strudel, which is this really incredible dessert here. So for the drink, I used a lot of the spices that we use in that — nutmeg and cinnamon and raisins. Plus some bacon, obviously.”
Obviously.
Make it:
2 ounces 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey
1 egg white
1 ounce nutmeg simple syrup
1 ounce lemon juice
Topped with 1 teaspoon bacon-raisin jam
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The bartender: Margot Thompson, Farmhouse
The drink: Buried in the Backyard
The whiskey: Bulleit Rye
“I didn’t start in craft bartending,” Margot Thompson tells me. It’s a weekday happy hour at Farmhouse, in the River Market, and Thompson, the restaurant’s bar manager, flits between pouring beer and opening wine bottles. “I actually worked at Garozzo’s and the Midland and various concert halls. That’s when I was first able to really get creative with bartending, with dessert drinks.”
Dessert plays one serious role in Thompson’s B&B cocktail. The other chief inspiration, though, is a legendary man and his legendary snack: Elvis and his fried peanut butter–banana-bacon sandwich.
“For this one, I fat-washed Journeyman’s Featherbone [her practice bourbon] with some bananas and peanut butter,” Thompson says.
How?
“I heated the peanut butter and two sliced bananas over low heat, then added a bottle of bourbon, then threw it in the freezer for a few hours,” she explains. “The fat turned to solids, and I scraped that off.”
Ah.
Then come the heavy cream, the Spirits of St. Louis Vermont Night — a bitter base liqueur with a heavy maple-syrup profile — and the simple syrup. The result looks like horchata but tastes like — seriously — liquid bananas and peanut butter. I get just a hint of bourbon, enough to let me know that some alcohol is hidden away in there. The bacon sugar invites me to keep sipping until I’ve effectively licked the glass clean, sophistication be Elvis-damned.
Thompson watches me and flashes a wicked smile. She says, “It’s good to be a little indulgent sometimes, isn’t it?”
Make it:
2 ounces bourbon washed with bananas and peanut butter
1/2 ounce heavy cream
1/4 ounce Spirits of St. Louis Vermont Night liqueur
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes each Angostura, chocolate and orange bitters
The bartender: Erik Mariscal, Local Pig Westport
The drink: Not Your Mom’s Cucumber Water
The whiskey: Wild Turkey Rye
The thing about Erik Mariscal is that the dude seems totally normal. When you find him at the Local Pig Westport, where he’s the bar manager, he’s usually smiling, pouring a beer, mixing a drink, carrying around supplies — regular bartender things. But Mariscal, who comes from a cooking background, has a lot more in common with, say, a chef than he has with his fellow barkeeps. Herbs and fresh ingredients play big roles on Mariscal’s menu.
So I knew to expect a vegetable-focused cornucopia when I asked Mariscal to whip up his B&B cocktail. But I still didn’t expect to see nearly a dozen different ingredients, or a crazy-green beverage.
Mariscal has mixed together muddled tarragon, Wild Turkey, housemade cucumber-and-fennel water, honey, lemon juice and Velvet Falernum (a sweet, almond-and-ginger-spiced syrup from the Caribbean). The flavors come at me in waves.
“I wanted to make it very spring, so I thought of the most refreshing ingredients I could think of, which were cucumber and fennel,” he says.
Mission accomplished.
Make it:
1-3/4 ounces Wild Turkey Rye
1 ounce cucumber water
1/2 ounce fennel water
1/2 ounce honey
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce Velvet Falernum
1 sprig tarragon
Top with sparkling water
The bartender: Rachel Freeman, Cleaver & Cork
The drink: Smolder Fashioned
The whiskey: Bulleit
Rachel Freeman does not come across as a shy woman. She’s got a throaty voice, and it gives way to a deep laugh that pushes out of smiling lips that are usually painted a striking red. She’s excellent at giving side-eye, but she is also — like any bartender worth her salt — completely relatable.
Freeman’s drinks are also not what you’d call introverted. When I stop in to see her at Cleaver & Cork, just a few weeks after our bourbon-filled Bartender’s Notebook, Freeman is ready to smash me in the face, figuratively speaking, with a hard-liquor punch. In the nicest way.
“The cocktail on Thursday will have Grade B maple syrup,” she tells me as I try her terrific creation. “But here I’m doing some of my runny honey, which is half honey and half hot water, so it’s thinner and pourable and mixable. I’m also doing orange and Angostura bitters, and I’d like to use maple bitters, but I’m without those today.”
She has gone with chocolate bitters instead, making for a drink that looks deceptively like a regular old fashioned but takes a detour toward pure luxury.
“The one at Bacon & Bourbon will be a little smokier,” she promises. “You’ll have to try that one, too.”
Of course.
Make it:
2 ounces Bulleit bourbon
1/2 ounce runny honey
2 dashes each Angostura, chocolate and orange bitters
1 Misto spray of Laphroaig
1 flamed orange coin
