So, I watched an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives at the behest of a good friend. The episode contained, amongst other things, a diner/bar that served “Bacon-infused bourbon”. Naturally, this was made on-site. The basic recipe goes something like this:

750 mL Bourbon
1-3 oz. Bacon Grease

Strain bacon grease until pure (no bits!), and drop into a bottle of bourbon. Let sit for 6-8 hours. After that time, place the bottle in a freezer for 1 hour to allow grease to set up, pour out bourbon into its resting container through strainer to catch last vestiges of the bacon grease. Serve as needed.

The 1st Pass

The first pass I made at this recipe involved a half-bottle of Eagle Rare 10 year bourbon, and Boar’s Head bacon. Eagle Rare is a fairly strong bourbon, and I learned a few things through this process:

1. Bacon Grease is less dense than bourbon, and when it freezes it will freeze like a cap over your delicious bourbon. In the next iteration I will infuse and freeze in a bowl to make grease-extraction less annoying.
2. Bacon-infusion does not make your bourbon taste like bacon, instead it has the effect of smoothing out the bourbon’s strength and simultaneously feeling very heavy. As one friend described “It’s like a meal and drink all in one…. you’ve created the breakfast of alcoholics!”

Armed with that, I made another pass.

2nd Iteration

For this iteration I did, as aforementioned, infuse it in a bowl. I also, at the suggestion of a compatriot, added the cooked bacon to the infusion to determine the effects of pork meat’s presence on the flavor. Sadly, for this iteration, I wasn’t able to freeze it to properly extract the fat. I did, however, stumble on a few interesting things as a result:

1. I will never throw out the bacon grease extracted from the infusion, because good lord the flavor potential there is incredible.
2. Not catching all the bacon grease through a mesh strainer creates unappealing globules of bacon grease as you pour the bacon-bourbon to impress your friends.
3. It didn’t taste that great, it most certainly tasted greasy. Not appealing at all.
4. The bacon used in the infusion need to have something done to them before attempting to eat them (baking? pan-frying? pressing to extract more bourbon?)

That all lead to iteration 2.5:

2.5nd iteration

To extract the remaining bacon grease from the bourbon, I jerry-rigged a filter by placing a funnel into my target bottle, followed by two coffee filters, followed by a mesh strainer. As I poured the bacon-bourbon-grease mixture into this, the mesh strainer caught most of the grease, and a fair bit of pure bourbon trickled into the bottle.

Oddly enough,though, this stream turned to a drizzle, and now as I watch it continue to filter (more than a half hour later), I notice that it has slowed to a drip. A fair amount of the bacon-bourbon-grease remains in my filter, slowly draining into the bottle. My thinking is that because I did not freeze the infusion, an amount of grease as able to evenly mix with the bourbon which caused the nasty greasy taste. This also meant that the grease needs to get strained out and is either clogging the filter in some small way, or the mixture is too thick to penetrate the coffee filter properly.

1. Coffee-filtering most certainly is improving the texture and color. Flavor notes to follow observation in the morning.
2. Definitely need to freeze it next time.
3. I need to use cheaper bourbon to continue iterating, I don’t want this to burn a hole in my pocket on failed experiments.

I’ll continue to update on this process. I’m hoping this filtration improves the flavor enough to lend support to the cooked-bacon infusion.

-Ozz