I love cooking with bourbon. Sometimes, I even put it in the food.
Bourbon is great because, well, it just is! It’s an authentic American innovation and an iconic part of Southern culture. Plus, it’s really really good. In good bourbon you can get as much depth and complexity of flavor as you’ll find in a much more expensive Scotch. And the recent renewed interest in making quality bourbon, driven in large part by a Yankee fascination with Southern foods, makes it easier than ever to get your hands on the good stuff.
Good bourbons are generally labeled ‘single barrel’ or ‘small batch,’ meaning the bottle was sourced from a single barrel or a small batch of barrels. Single barrel bourbons tend to have more distinctive flavor, but can be matched by some high quality blended small batch bourbons. The bottle will also tell you how old the bourbon is, with a higher age number usually (but not always) meaning a better-tasting bourbon.
Really good bourbon has few proper applications. These are the following: 1) Bourbon in a glass; 2) Bourbon in a glass with ice; and 3) Bourbon in a glass with a splash of water. And that’s it. No Old Fashioning or Manhattaning or (heaven help us) cola-mixing should occur here. With lesser-quality bourbon, however, we’ve got more options.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2011.