Benton's Old Fashioned

Name: Benton's Old Fashioned
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 60 ml Bacon Fat-Washed Bourbon; 7.5 ml Grade A Maple Syrup; Angostura Bitters; Orange Peel

Created by Don Lee at PDT in New York in 2007, using Benton's smoked bacon from Tennessee.

Ingredients

Bacon Fat-Washed Bourbon60 ml

Grade A Maple Syrup7.5 ml

Angostura Bitters

Orange Peel

Glassware

Old-fashioned glass

Chilled.

Method

1
Fat-wash the bourbon first: render bacon fat, stir 45ml of the warm liquid fat into a 700ml bottle of bourbon, leave it at room temperature for four hours, then freeze it overnight and strain the solidified fat off through a coffee filter.
2
Combine 60ml of the washed bourbon with the maple syrup in a mixing glass.
3
Add two dashes of Angostura bitters.
4
Add ice and stir for 25–30 seconds until well chilled.
5
Strain over a large clear ice cube and express an orange peel over the surface.

From the Bartender

Created by Don Lee at PDT in New York in 2007, using Benton's smoked bacon from Tennessee. It made fat-washing a standard bar technique. The maple is not decorative — it is the bridge between the smoke and the whiskey, and demerara syrup does not do the same job.

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