If you follow some of the more technical and in-depth cocktail blogs around the country, such as spiritsandcocktails.com (Jamie Bordeaux’s blog), Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s site (www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com), and various other tremendous homages to the art of drink, you will undoubtedly have stumbled across descriptions of the technique of “fat-washing”; a process of infusing melted fat into liquor and then freezing the mixture to solidify the fat for easy straining. Not to be outdone here in the Hotel Congress lab, my colleague Mike “McGillionaire” and I set out to duplicate—and perhaps surpass—the efforts of some of the foremost bar chefs and mixologists in the country.
Our first attempt was with vodka, and we decided to use bacon, since rendered bacon fat is fairly free of debris and doesn’t require laborious “hot straining”, which is essentially running the liquid hot fat through some sort of chinoise device. Here’s what we used:
(1) 1-Liter bottle of vodka (we used Kamchatka, just because if we screwed it up we didn’t want to lose a bottle of premium stuff. I strongly suggest using something at least of Smirnoff level… Stoli would work well. Stay away from Absolut.)
2 oz. Filtered Bacon fat, liquid (to do this, take a dollop of bacon fat and microwave it in a coffee cup). As long as there are no bacon bits left in the fat, filtering isn’t necessary.
(1) airtight glass or plastic container larger than 1 liter (I prefer glass)
(2) coffee filters… these are essential to the finished product
(1) Serving container
(1) Freezer
After warming the fat into a clear liquid, pour it into the airtight container with the vodka. Shake this mixture quickly and let sit at room temperature for 1-3 hours… two hours should be more than sufficient. Then place the mixture in the freezer. I recommend leaving it freezing overnight, just to be sure. When the mixture comes out of the freezer, you will notice that A) all or most of the fat has “pancaked” in the container, and B) the mixture has little to no discernable odor. Never fear, the odor will return once the liquid returns closer to room temperature, and with a vengeance. Before the liquid begins to warm up, use a pair of tongs to remove the chunks of fat. Then strain the liquid through a coffee filter into your serving container. You may have to change filters halfway through. The result is like this:
Mmmm... well vodka. With Bacon.
And once we had our bacon vodka, I had to find a medium of delivery. I settled finally on a traditional bloody mary… and the result is fantastic. But wait… for those looking for a savory martini, this is a good recipe:
2 oz. Bacon-infused vodka
½ oz Dry Vermouth
barspoon Maple syrup
Pinch of salt
Squeeze of lemon peel
Stir ingredients over cracked ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with bacon, blue cheese, and red pepper-stuffed olives.
Now that we had perfected the bacon vodka, we wanted to follow in the footsteps of Don Lee from New York’s PDT and try our hand at bourbon. He invented the Benton Old Fashioned, which is essentially an old fashioned with maple syrup and Benton bacon-infused bourbon. Delicious. But we wanted to go even further. The Cup Café has this marvelous smoker which operates at all hours of the day, imparting delicious mesquite flavor to many of our fine meat dishes, like the BBQ Brisket.
Our chef, Travis Peters, was gracious enough to save me a pan of his brisket fat run-off, which smells heavenly but frankly looks dreadful.
It's so foul but so good!
Using the same process as the vodka, we fat-washed Maker’s Mark bourbon with the brisket fat. One problem we found was that the brisket fat contained a preponderance of herbs, spices, and charred bits of brisket which we should have strained first before the infusion. You live and you learn, I guess.
The result? A bourbon with the characteristic sweetness of Maker’s Mark (high wheat content) along with a strong herbal component and a brutal smokiness, almost akin to an Islay scotch. McGillionaire was so excited about the result that he immediately mixed a traditional sour:
Like meat heaven once it hits your lips.
The McGillionaire
2 oz. BBQ Brisket-infused Maker’s Mark
1 oz. Fresh lemon juice
1 oz. demerara syrup
1 egg white
Peychaud’s bitters
Dry shake egg whites and lemon juice. Add bourbon, demerara and ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with a dash of peychaud’s bitters on the resulting foam.
Money. Bartender Ciaran Wiese has been making some old fashioned cocktails with the stuff over at Maynards Market & Kitchen… come in and prepare to have your mind blown.
