As we've said before, this book is intended as a guide for the home bartender. Now that you've mastered the mixing of the drinks, you may want some suggestions about finger food to accompany your bourbon-based sippage. Since bourbon is characteristically on the sweet side, you'll find that a variety of savory foods make good complements to the drinks. And just as bourbon is a traditional Kentucky and southern drink, the traditional food ingredients of the region pair naturally with the beverage. So think about corn (bourbon's main ingredient, after all), pork, and chicken, all plentiful in southern cooking, as starting points for your party food. You don't have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen whipping up treats. Keep it simple.
Among the prepared snacks that you can just pour into attractive bowls and place around the room are:
Nuts, especially roasted and salted almonds and pecans
Goldfish®crackers, any favorite flavors
Cheese straws
Cheese (sharp ones such as cheddar) and crackers
Corn chips with salsa or bean dip
Popcorn
Here's a tip about popcorn. You can, of course, be high tech and use the microwave variety. But low tech yields some wonderful flavors. Pop popcorn from a jar in a heavy, lidded saucepan. Cover the bottom with a film of corn oil, heat on medium high until a test kernel pops, then add a single layer of kernels to cover the bottom. When popped, empty into a large bowl and add salt and melted butter. Dried dill is another nice touch. For a truly southern touch, use melted bacon drippings instead of corn oil. This imparts a subtle bacony flavor and you won't need to add butter after popping. (Susan keeps her bacon drippings in a stoneware mug in the fridge and always makes popcorn this way.)
Many grocery meat counters, as well as local butchers, feature sausages in a variety of flavors. The quarter-pound links can be cooked and then sliced into bites and served with toothpicks. Consider varieties such as spicy chorizo (pork or chicken), chicken-apple, pork with garlic, and chicken-cilantro. You may want to save traditional sage-flavored sausage for breakfast with your pancakes covered in bourbon-laced maple syrup.
Other toothpick-stabbed bites can include anything you fancy wrapped in cooked bacon, such as water chestnuts, shrimp, scallops, or bite-size pieces of roasted chicken breast or turkey. Chicken wings (which have their own built in “toothpicks”) would be tasty with your cocktails, but there's always the awkward problem of what to do with the bones.
FINGER SANDWICHES
Again, do the easy thing. Buy cocktail buns to make sandwiches using any of the following:
Pulled pork, chicken, or beef, obtained from your favorite local barbecue joint
Sliced pork tenderloin
Sliced roast beef or beef tenderloin
Country ham
Baked ham
Pimiento cheese
A little barbecue sauce on the pulled meats would be good. Try a dollop of steak sauce with the sliced beef and pork. Ham can be dressed with mayonnaise or, even better, Durkee's® sauce. For an authentic taste of Louisville, use Henry Bain sauce (below) in place of steak sauce. For yet another Louisville flavor, serve Benedictine spread (below) on party-size slices of pumpernickel bread. (Bourbon will make the spread disappear if you serve it on white bread.)
RECIPES FOR SAUCES AND SPREADS
If you really want to spend some time in the kitchen, here are some classics that you could easily find in Louisville but are such local foods that you will need to make your own if you don't live in the Derby City.
This local favorite was invented by caterer and restaurateur Jennie Benedict, who had a tearoom in downtown Louisville in the first half of the twentieth century. This recipe is modified from Benedict's 1922 Blue Ribbon Cookbook (Reprint: Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008).
16 ounces cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons cucumber juice
2 tablespoon onion juice
2 teaspoons salt
dash of cayenne pepper
4–5 drops green food coloring
To get the juice, peel and grate a cucumber, then wrap it in several layers of cheesecloth and squeeze the juice into a dish. Do the same for the onion (or buy bottled onion juice). Mix all ingredients with a fork until well blended. Don't use an electric mixer or food processor because the spread will be too runny. Makes a pound of spread.
Like the venerable Old Fashioned, this sauce was invented at Louisville's Pendennis Club. Henry Bain (1863–1928) was the club's African American headwaiter, and he's credited with inventing the sauce. This recipe, by former Courier-Journal food editor Sarah Fritschner, was printed in the newspaper on February 19, 2007. In some sources, the pickled walnuts are not included, but they really are the key to the sauce's unique flavor.
1 jar (17-ounce) Major Grey's chutney
half of a 9-ounce jar imported pickled walnuts
1 bottle (14-ounce) ketchup
1 bottle (11-ounce) A.1. steak sauce
1 bottle (10-ounce) Worcestershire sauce
1 bottle (12-ounce) chili sauce
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Put the chutney and walnuts, if using, in a blender and chop fine or puree as you prefer (you'll need to stop and stir). Combine with other ingredients and season to taste with Tabasco. Makes 4 pints. In addition to using it as a sandwich dressing, you can slather it on top of a block of cream cheese and serve as a cracker spread.
Unlike other suggestions, this sauce is on the sweet, rather than savory, side. It's one of my favorites, and I suggest serving it on top of cream cheese spread on crackers, as you might the Henry Bain sauce. It's also terrific over vanilla ice cream. The recipe is from The Courier-Journal Cookbook by Lillian Marshall (Louisville: Courier-Journal & Times, 1971).
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup water
1 cup pecans, broken
1 cup strawberry preserves
1 orange
1 lemon
1 cup bourbon
Combine sugars with water and cook until syrup reaches about 240 degrees on a candy thermometer, or until it will almost, but not quite, spin a thread. Remove from the heat and stir in pecans and preserves.
Remove the rind from the orange and lemon with a potato parer and chop fine. Cut off and discard the white membrane; remove sections. Cut the orange and lemon sections into small pieces. Add the cut-up rind, fruit, and bourbon to the sugar and water mixture. Set away in the refrigerator to ripen. Makes over a quart and keeps indefinitely.