Cooking with Bourbon

By Joshua Gandee, Beverage Director and Jack Moore, Executive Chef, Watershed Kitchen & Bar

Without doing any research, I can confidently say that the first time someone cooked with bourbon, it was an accident. Before that, the only time spirits would make their way into the kitchen was to create a secrecy outpost where you could pour yourself a quick dram before you would head back out to entertain the family that’s in your home.

However, luckily for us, whoever’s hand slipped and without recourse dribbled a bit of America’s spirit into a batch of cookies or roasted chicken, created a new display of flavor and technique into the at-home world of culinary magic.

For those not familiar, Bourbon is a spirit distilled from corn and other grains (in our case rye, wheat, barley and spelt,) that is then aged in charred new American oak barrels where it gets 100% of its color and about 70% of its flavor. Much like reform school, its time in the barrel gives the spirit ample amount of time to think about what it has done, and to become a little less rough around the edges. The barrel shares with the spirit its worldly views and experience and the pupil (spirit) takes on notes of smoky caramel, vanilla, coconut, sweet corn, coffee and oak. The softening of flavors are what help to make bourbon such a stand up spirit in the kitchen.

One thing to remember when cooking with bourbon, is that with the addition of heat from a pan the alcohol present in the bourbon will begin to cook off, which will not transfer any of that bourbon burn, or alcohol heat to your finished product, but if you are missing that, we recommend 1.5 ounces on the rocks for every 1.5 hours spent in the kitchen. In the case of cookies, especially with recipes where browned butter is present (those nutty, caramel and vanilla notes from browned butter are also present in bourbon) bourbon can be used in addition to vanilla extract making your final product a decadent, flavorful recipe worth passing down to your children, or to a co-worker who keeps bringing in store-bought goodies.

If baking isn’t your speed, and you find yourself reading up on pan sauces, looking for the right time to pull the trigger on experimentation, then we’ve got some really good news: bourbon is good at that, too. Upon completion of roasted chicken or a steak in a pan, when the flavorful bits are stuck to the bottom this is bourbon’s time to shine. Leave the red wine (that you only use for cooking *wink*) in your hidden cabinet beside the oven, and instead reach for that bottle of bourbon and use it to deglaze. You’re basically adding a cold or a room temperature liquid to the hot pan** (please see safety note below) so that the brown bits stuck to the bottom release and create an awesome sauce that you’ll be “fond” of in no time...it’s a glaze joke. As you continue cooking down the liquid the alcohol will burn off leaving behind the sweeter notes of bourbon to accompany any cream or butter you add with salt and pepper to taste. If you are cooking with pork, instead of chicken or beef, we recommend substituting apple brandy to deglaze or create a sauce because you can’t name a better combination than pork and apples, unless you say pork and maple syrup with sage, but we don’t make maple syrup and sage liquor.

To help get you started, we’ve included an easy pan sauce recipe that’s great for pork chops from Jack Moore, Executive Chef of Watershed Kitchen and Bar.

What you’ll need:

½ of an Ohio apple, diced
2 ounces Watershed Apple Brandy or Bourbon
2 ½ tablespoons butter, chilled
1 teaspoon chives, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Remove your pork chops (or other protein) from the pan along with any excess fat
• Add apples to pan and saute for 1-2 minutes
• REMOVE pan from open flame/burner and add brandy or bourbon.* This will cause the brandy to flame up. After flame has died down return to heat and allow brandy to burn off.
• Once brandy flame has burned out, remove from heat again and add cold butter and chives. Whisk butter and chives off of flame/burner until butter is melted.**
• Season with salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy!

Chef’s Notes:

* Remove pan when adding apple brandy or bourbon as it will produce a flame, which is pretty cool.

** Whisk butter until melted off of flame or burner, if it is left over heat the sauce will break (butter separates from the sauce).

*** If sauce “breaks” in the pan, you can easily fix it by throwing your dinner away and buying enough hot and ready pizzas to accommodate the number of guests you are hosting, making sure to get enough extra garlic butter.