Pig Roast Old Fashioned

 

When I first got this Smokehouse whiskey from MurLarkey distillery, I wanted to showcase it in a cocktail designed to play up the bacon savoriness of the whiskey. The first thing that came to mind was rimming the glass with bacon shot (a mix of sea salt, bacon, black pepper and celery seeds), which would really keep things on the savory side. But I was a little unsure of what to do next. Traditional Old Fashioned cocktails have sugar and bitters, but I felt like that would mean abandoning my plan for a savory cocktail.

Then it hit me while perusing my bar. Amer Picon has bitter notes of orange, like the orange twist you squeeze into an Old Fashioned. It also has sugar, but not in the way that you would notice. Finally, I made my Amer Picon using orange peel bitters extracted with MurLarkey Justice white whiskey, so the base of the Smokehouse and Picon would be essentially the same distillate. 

What a success! The orange notes are aligned with bitter orange zest, negating the need for bitters. The sweetness of the Amer Picon is unnoticable and does not detract from the savory flavors of the Smokehouse. Then the bacon rim matches the bacon in the whiskey. It's so good that you want every sip to sample a little of the bacon shot rim!

• 1 oz. MurLarkey Smokehouse whiskey
• 1 oz. Amer Picon (DIY Amer Picon used)
• bacon shot rim

To make the bacon shot, combine 1/2  tbsp. bacon bits, 1/2 tbsp. sea salt, 1 tsp. black pepper and 1/2 tsp. celery salt on a shallow dish. Wet the rim (or half the rim) of a chilled Old Fashioned glass with water or citrus juice and dip it in the dry mixture. Build the cocktail over ice in the glass and stir until it is chilled.