Pairing | Kettle Bourbon BBQ Chips and Bull Run Straight Bourbon Whiskey

I recently tried out a really fun pairing that I had never considered before. Potato chips and bourbon!

Kettle Brand chips from here in Oregon (with a great sustainability focused business model) recently launched a Bourbon BBQ flavor, just in time for summer picnics and beach days. And of course I was like, hmmm, I wonder how they would pair with some actual bourbon? It felt right to match them with one of my favorite bourbons from Oregon, Bull Run’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

Perfect picnic

First, some tasting notes. Potato chip tasting notes!

The Bourbon BBQ Kettle chips have a tangy, bright flavor on top of the BBQ spices. There are hints of sweetness and smoke reminiscent of charred oak and a slight orangey citrus note that lingers. To be clear, these are VERY addictive chips.

Bull Run Straight Bourbon Whiskey is a 90 proof, Chinato barrel aged “merchant bottle” that is one of the foundation whiskeys created when Bull Run was starting out. This bourbon starts off with a slightly fruity note and mild banana scent that becomes a smooth spiciness on the back of the tongue. I find this bourbon to be an almost dangerously easy sipper that I like best with a few rocks.

Chips <3 Bourbon. Who knew?!

Guess what?! The chips and the bourbon taste great together! The spice in the chips compliments the spice at the back of each sip of bourbon. The orangey citrus notes I noticed from the chips also match well with the bourbon’s opening fruitiness. I wasn’t sure how these two were going to work together, but I have to say, I think I have a new favorite snack. This is not the most serious pairing review, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious! If you show up to your next backyard party with a bag of Bourbon BBQ Kettle chips and a bottle of Bull Run Straight Bourbon Whiskey, don’t expect to be taking any back home.

Review | Jameson’s Whiskey Makers Series: Cooper’s Croze and Blender’s Dog

I was recently lucky enough to receive samples of two new releases (the two available in the U.S. so far) from Jameson’s Whiskey Makers Series, so I could have a nip and spread the word to you all!

First a bit of background. Both of these whiskeys are named after the important craftspeople and their tools that are essential to the process of creating whiskey.

Sample cuties

Cooper’s Croze

The Cooper is the craftsperson who creates the barrels that age the whiskey. The Croze is the essential tool that creates the groove that allows the head of the cask to be positioned. Jameson’s Cooper’s Croze honors their Head Cooper, Ger Buckley.

Blender’s Dog

The Blender, of course, if the craftsperson who combines whiskeys to make the flavors unique, complimentary and delicious. The Dog (also called the Whiskey thief) is the tool used to sample whiskey straight from the cask while working to create the best combinations. Jameson’s Blender's Dog honors their Head Blender, Billy Leighton.

How do they taste?!

I found both the whiskeys to be very unique from each other. The Cooper’s Croze was smoother than the Jameson Original I am used to. It has mild, honey like sweetness on the front that I really enjoyed. This is a great whiskey for sipping neat, perhaps paired with some fruit or sweeter cheeses after dinner.

The Blenders Dog was a much more tenacious whiskey. Less sweet on the front with more of the charred oak coming through. This whiskey was spicy with what tasted almost like undertones of peat from the tannins. I felt like I’d want to be sipping it along side a rare steak.

Both of these bottles are now available in U.S., retailing for around $80 a fifth. Perfect for sharing over the holidays!

Dank Derby Mule

For some background, I recently relocated to the beautiful state of Oregon, where marijuana just happens to be legal. As an avid woman who whiskeys, but hasn’t dabbled much in the devil weed, I had an idea (granted, I am certainly not the first). Combine them! In a gentle way, that my rookie cannabis user status could handle. Adding some homemade marijuana tincture to a bourbon cocktail felt like the perfect start. Here’s what I came up with.

The tools and ingredients.

Dank Derby Mule

1.5 oz Makers Mark Bourbon (any mid-grade bourbon will work)

*1 ml of Marijuana tincture (recipes vary), follow link to the Everclear version I used

3 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Juice of half a lime

Strong ginger beer (non-alcoholic, I used Reed’s)

Shake first four ingredients with a few ice cubes. Pour over a glass of crushed ice, and top with the ginger beer. Garnish with leaves if you’ve got em!

*those with stronger constitutions can add more tincture

Garnish may be hard to find...

This cocktail definitely falls under the category of earthy and herbal. And these flavors increase as you add more tincture. The lime and ginger beer come through with a nice spicy, sparkle on the front and then the ginger sort of melds with the peppery flavor of the weed on the back. My only complaint would be that the bourbon gets a little lost among all the other flavors that are happening.

The effects of the tincture start after about 20 minutes, and it’s far more gentle, almost warmish feeling of well-being that matches well with the buzz from the bourbon. It’s more subtle than smoking by far.

I think this makes a great pre-dinner cocktail, as it helps get your appetite revved up…and for some reason all the food tastes better.

St. Patrick's Piñavera

My earliest memories of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day recall snow. A lot of snow. Whether in Boston or in Montreal, mid-March was still considered the depths of winter, and St. Paddy’s Day celebrations were conducted accordingly: winter parkas and whiskey neat.

So this unusually summer-like weather we’ve been having in New York—a high of 72 on Thursday!—is leaving me a bit at a loss for how to properly honor everyone’s favorite Irish holiday.

Finally, this week brought inspiration. I was invited to spend an evening on a Jameson-themed pre-St. Pat’s Day Pub Crawl. But other than any old shot & a beer pub crawl, we crawled our way through a selection of delicious Jameson cocktails, many of them perfect for the balmy evening.

Jameson, while often the backbone of a proper St. Patrick’s Day celebration, too often stars only in a shot glass alongside a beer, or splashed into a disappointing whisker ginger. For this column, we wanted to keep the main act, but spruce up the costume a bit, from well drink to elegant cocktail. And our pub crawl gave up the perfect opportunity.

One in particular, at Grey Lady on Delancey, was the perfect warm-weather whiskey cocktail, looking forward to summer but anchoring us in the St. Patty’s Day festivities that we usually expect in March.

A piña colada-inspired whisky sour, the Shady Lady uses traditional sour elements, like lemon juice, whiskey, and egg whites, but adds a tropical twist, with the addition of pineapple gum syrup and a spritz of piña colada essence.

We’ve adapted the recipe slightly for home creation, making a pineapple simple syrup, and topping it with coconut flakes, and renamed it the St. Patrick’s Piñavera, a hat tip to this year’s early spring.

St. Patrick's Piñavera

Adapted from Grey Lady’s The Shady Lady

• 1 1/2 oz Jameson Irish Whiskey
• 3/4 oz pineapple simple syrup
• 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 oz egg whites (the white of one egg)
• Angostura bitters
• Coconut flakes (can substitute shredded coconut)

Dry shake all ingredients. Add ice to shaker and shake again vigorously for 10-15 seconds, depending on weight of ice. Fine strain into a coup, or over a large ice cube in a tumbler. Garnish with dashes of Angostura bitters and a sprinkling of coconut flakes

Pineapple Simple Syrup

• 2 cups of chopped fresh pineapple
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Strain into saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until quantity reduced by half (approximately 30 minutes), stirring occasionally. Hot it should be the consistency of maple syrup; cool it’ll be a bit thicker.

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Adorable pineapple tumblers available here from The Pineapple Co.

Fall #AF Punch

A couple of weeks ago I was up in the Hudson Valley with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday and visit the Tuthilltown Distillery, where Hudson Whiskey, among others, is produced. Now, I’m from Massachusetts, so I’m well familiar with fall foliage, and the gorgeous explosions of color that graces New England during autumn. I have years of childhood memories of sweet, pillowy apple cider donuts, and I grew up thinking it was perfect normal to climb up precarious ladders to spend half an afternoon picking apples off trees, and then paying $25 for the privilege of bringing home a bushel’s worth of your own manual labor. This was all routine to me.

While I appreciate the autumnal wonderland that takes over New England in the fall, I’m not as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it as a lot of tourists who travel from far and wide to see the leaves change.

But you guys—this weekend was fall AF!

Maybe I had become a little bit fall-jaded over the years, and all I needed was a whole weekend fully immersed in the Hudson Valley—gorging myself on, yes, apple cider donuts, everything pumpkin (basic be damned), and of course, lots of whiskey—to become reacquainted with the technicolor display that nature puts on for us every year. Whatever it was, it worked.

We took the whole New England Fall thing to its extreme, infusing the entire weekend with its essence. We kicked our way through damp leaf piles in the woods, visited antique shops and flea markets, and bought way too many pumpkins, apples, and donuts at the neighborhood farm stand.

Yet after stocking up on all kinds of Hudson Ryes, Bourbons, and even barrel-aged maple syrup at the distillery, I turned to an old friend to make the Fall #AF Punch that we mixed up for the birthday party: Canadian Club.

Canadian Club was my gateway whiskey. I started drinking it when I lived in Canada for university, and I’ve had a soft spot for it—and rye—ever since. Its blend of rye, rye malt, and barley gives it a distinctive taste that’s smooth, but not underwhelming. It holds up to being mixed, but doesn’t overpower the other flavors.

At first glance, this just seems like a cold version of hot spiked cider. But the sparkling wine and lemon juice give it a bit of a kick, and once it mellows all together, it’s much more multi-dimensional than your average hot cider. And it packs a bit of a punch (depending on how much whisky you add). Enjoy responsibly, with friends, preferably while sitting on a pile of orange leaves.

Fall AF Punch Ingredients

• 6 cups apple cider
• 1 bottle of sparkling wine
• 2 cup of orange juice (preferably fresh squeezed)
• ½ cup lemon juice
• 1 apple, sliced
• Canadian Club or other rye whisk(e)y to taste
• ¼ tsp each ground cinnamon and nutmeg
• Ice

Combine cider, sparkling wine, orange juice, lemon juice, spices, and whiskey in a large lunch bowl. Stir and let sit 20-30 minutes. While punch is resting, slice an apple into rounds. Float the apple rounds in the punch bowl. Serve over ice.

Espinheira Com Uísque

Two weeks ago I went on a very short, very last minute trip to Lisbon for work. I don’t recommend flying to Europe for just a couple days, but the disadvantages—exhaustion, never really knowing what time it was, a very high plane time to destination time ratio—were overwhelmingly outweighed by the delights that I discovered there!

My mother was born in Lisbon, and while I grew up hearing stories about it, I’d somehow never been as an adult, so I was really excited to get a chance to visit, however briefly.  And brief though my stay was, Lisbon is quaintly small, so I managed to see quite a bit of it in the day or so I had to walk around and explore. I also managed to come up with some first-glance reactions:

Cons: Everything is uphill! Spanish fluency, while helpful in reading Portuguese, is absolutely no help in conversation. Very fast drivers on very narrow streets!

Pros: All the beautiful hand-painted tiles! Hidden Art Deco details everywhere you turn. The bounty of exquisite seafood… and pastries… and sardines… all the food, really! But mostly: the wine.

Oh my, the wine. I’ve always loved Port wine, but there’s something about enjoying a (criminally cheap) glass at a sidewalk bar in a charming little alleyway that just elevated the experience. I popped in from wine shop to wine shop, lusting after vintage bottles selling for pennies compared to how much they would cost in New York. After agonizing over the choices (with limited luggage space, I had to be reasonable) I finally settled on a Tawny Port to bring home.

And then my eye fell on a beautiful Art Nouveau-style golden label on a bottle of ruby liqueur. I didn’t know what it was, but for only ten euro it was impossible to leave without it.

I chatted with the shopkeeper who told me a bit about it: Espinheira Licor de Ginja, a sour cherry liqueur made by soaking cherries and in aguardente (a Portuguese brandy). It’s a national favorite, and the Espinheira brand is still family owned by the fifth generation.

It also happens to be delicious!

While it’s meant to sipped, served in small cups with boozy cherries in the bottom, I wanted to try it in a cocktail. A whiskey cocktail of course! Enter Espinheira com uísque, or Espinheira with whiskey.

While cherries might evoke summer, this cherry liqueur has a richer, more autumnal flavor, which pairs beautifully with the woodsy, caramel notes of the bourbon. The lemon and club soda make it more of a light, refreshing cocktail, but a more Manhattan-like variation could skip the lemon and club soda, and instead include a couple of dashes of bitters—essentially substituting the Espinheira for the more traditional (but not dissimilar) sweet vermouth. I haven’t tried that version yet, but it’s next on the list.

Saúde!

Espinheira Com Uísque

Adapted from Food & Wine Cherry Soda

• 1 ½ oz Bourbon
• ¾ oz Espinheira Licor de Ginja (substitute Cherry Heering if you can’t find Espinheira)
• ¾ oz of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• ¼ oz of simple syrup
• 2 oz club soda
• Ice

Combine the Bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace), Espinheira Licor de Ginja, simple syrup, and the lemon juice in a shaker with some ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a highball glass over ice. Top with club soda, and garnish with lemon.

Bourbon Berry Bramble

One of my favorite childhood memories is going wild berry picking with my grandfather in the south of France. Papie Roger—Grandpa Roger—was a life-long lover of the outdoors, and knew more about edible plants than anyone else I’ve ever met. While my brother and I reveled in the berry-laden bushes—stuffing more blueberries into our mouths than into our little baskets, putting raspberries on our fingers like little hats before biting them off—my grandfather would forage for wild mushrooms, which would often end up featured at dinner in a delicious cream sauce in escalopes à la crème.

Whatever berries we ate in the woods were our treat, but the berries that managed to escape the clutches of our little fingers and make it all the way home would be whisked away by my grandmother, Mamie Madeleine, who would promptly boil them down into jars and jars of sweet and tart jam. They would get labeled, in her elegant, slightly shaky script—Framboise été 1994 or Mirtille été 1995—and then stashed away on a shelf in the cellar, to be unearthed the following summer for tartine and petit déjeuner.

Though we were always sad to see our harvests confiscated and vanished to the pantry, it was probably for the best; left to our own devices, we always indulged to excess, invariably resulting in a pair of whiny children with belly aches.

As an adult I love berries no less than I did as a child, and it seems that I have no more discipline than I did then either.

As soon as summer rolls around and those little pints of gems start popping up at grocery stores and on the corner fruit stands, I start stocking up. 3 for $5 pints of raspberries is too good a deal to pass up! Blueberries go in everything from cereal to smoothies to pancakes! When they’re ripe and sweet, blackberries are like little juicy bites of heaven.

The problem (a common one for single people unwisely buying in bulk), is that inevitably I can never get to them fast enough! And it breaks my heart to throw them away, as much as it did to have my hand-picked raspberry harvests end up in inaccessible jars.

So what can a berry lover do when you can’t stand to see another blueberry smoothie, but still have a fridge full of berries? A bramble!

The original bramble “brings together dry gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and crème de mûre,” but this is a whiskey column and September is National Bourbon Heritage Month, so try making a Bourbon Berry Bramble instead! I didn’t have crème de mûre, and since I was trying to use up leftover berries anyway, I substituted the liqueur for fresh fruit and a little bit of raspberry jam, which also serves to replace some of the sweetness of the simple syrup. To give it a floral note, I muddled in oh-so-fragrant Meyer lemons, and kept it light with a splash of sparkling water.

I used Larceny Bourbon, a wheated bourbon made in the Old Fitzgerald tradition. A delicious, very affordable alternative to Pappy Van Winkle (the unicorn of the Bourbon world), Larceny is approachable, floral, and sweet, yet buttressed by some more structured tobacco and cinnamon notes.

It’s wonderful neat, but the perfect price point for guiltlessly mixing into a batch of Bourbon Berry Brambles.

This jewel-toned cocktail is perfect for the changing seasons—honoring those last berry-filled days of summer, while easing in the autumnal spice of the bourbon.

Bourbon Berry Bramble

• 2 oz Larceny Bourbon

• 4-6 fresh berries (blackberries and raspberries work best) plus 3 berries for garnish.

• 1 tsp berry jam

• Meyer lemon (sliced and zested)

• 1 tsp simple syrup

• Sparkling water

• Ice

In a mixing glass, muddle berries, jam, and 1-2 slices of Meyer lemon. Add simple syrup and bourbon, stir. Pour everything (berries, lemons and all!) into a tumbler over ice. Top with sparkling water, garnish with lemon zest and a few berries skewered on a stirrer.

The article originally appeared on the Whiskey Reviewer on September 4, 2015.

Camp for Grownups

I never went to summer camp when I was a kid. I occasionally went camping (very rustically, as my dad thought that carving our own cutlery out of sticks, and other such activities quite unnecessary in the modern era, would “build character”), but I never had the classic, crafting, canoeing, capture-the-flagging, whispering-secrets-to-your-bunkmate after lights out, overnight camp experience that so many American kids have growing up.

From my friends who did go to camp, I heard a mixed bag of stories. The freedom was intoxicating, the nature walks were a welcome change from city life, and they could cannonball into lakes to their little hearts’ content. There was also horrible cafeteria food, cold showers, and swarms of mosquitoes. All of that I could take or leave.

But the stories that always made me so envious—the stories that made me wish I could trade my wonderful summers in Europe visiting family for a month at a lakeside camp in Maine with my friends—were the stories I heard about sitting around the campfire at night, roasting marshmallows, making s’mores, telling ghost stories, and melting into those endless, indigo summer evenings.

Naturally, I’ve sat around my fair share of campfires (mostly as a teenager, drinking cheap booze and pilfering rolled cigarettes from my older cousins). I know how mesmerizing those dancing flames are, and how everyone’s illuminated faces form a golden circle against a vanishing backdrop. I love the distinct sound of crackling wood, and its radiating warmth. And mostly I love that rich, earthy smoke that clings to your hair and clothes, so that when you smell it the next morning you get a wave of nostalgia for the night before.

But there’s something so special about living those experiences as a child, at an age when everything is still magical; I wish I could recreate that feeling.

So I tried! Enter the Campfire Old Fashioned. Camp for grown ups, if you will!

While an Old Fashioned isn’t typically a warm-weather cocktail, this one—with the sweet smokiness from the High West—evokes the summer scent of a smoldering campfire, bringing you straight back to those summer camp days.

High West Campfire is an unusual blend of Bourbon and Scotch, resulting in a beautiful harmony of peaty and caramel notes. For a unique twist, I replaced the traditional sugar with a Kampot pepper infused simple syrup. The pepper brings out the spice and smoke of the Scotch, while highlighting the floral sweetness of the Bourbon.

So while we may be too old to go back to summer camp, thankfully we’re old enough to drink! And this way we can enjoy the taste of campfire nights, with none of the cold showers and mosquitoes.

Campfire Old Fashioned

• 2 oz High West Campfire
• 1/2 teaspoon of Kampot Pepper simple syrup
• 2 dashes angostura bitters
• 1 dash Regan’s orange bitters
• Lemon peel and/or orange peel for garnish

In a mixing glass (preferably chilled in the freezer), combine the High West Campfire, Kampot simple syrup and bitters. Add ice and stir gently for 20-25 seconds. Strain into a frozen rocks glass, over a single large ice cube. Twist the lemon and orange peels over the drink to release the citrus oils.  Gently run the peels along the rim of the glass and then garnish.

Kampot Pepper Simple Syrup

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp whole fresh black Kampot peppercorns*
• 1 tbsp cracked fresh black peppercorns

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, and pepper. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly, until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Strain out pepper. Store in the fridge with a tight-fitting lid; keeps for up to one month.

* Kampot pepper is an especially fragrant varietal of black pepper from Cambodia, and our Owner-Editor swears by it. Yet if you can’t find it, any fresh black pepper will work just as well.

This article originally appeared on the Whiskey Reviewer on August 7, 2015.