May 19 2010
Bourbon Tasting
For a while I’ve been wanting to host a bourbon tasting, and since I’ll be heading to Louisville soon to stay at the Brown and give its bar a good workout, I thought it might be good timing to have some fellow aficionados over and sample some of Kentucky’s finest.
Thanks to Jan Kasl for helping cook. We made our own bourbon BBQ sauce for use on slow-smoked pulled pork. The bourbon baked beans cooked for 12 hours. Laurie Perdue, pride of North Carolina, offered her slaw and green bean recipe, and Tina baked Amy Wilson’s Derby Pie for desert. Quite the group effort. We used a fifth of Beam just in the cooking.
Extra special thanks go to Josh Hafer, fraternity brother and Heaven Hill honcho for donating a gorgeous bottle of Evan Williams, and for helping me with the tasting protocols.
Thanks to Sandy, Stu, Shep and Jack for attending, bottle in hand. The Elmer T. Lee won best of show 4-2 over Booker’s. Elmer will defend his title against a whole new slew of brunettes when next the tasting party (not to be confused with Tea Party — though they did come up in conversation) meets again.
Expensive table. You’ve got well over $230 worth of bourbon sitting there. And I am a fan of all of them. Working on a bottle of Four Roses right now (well, not literally right now and not all at once; I don’t want people to think I have a problem).