At the Crossroads of Smoking and Whiskey - Bourbonites Unite!

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The baby has my sleep schedule all sorts of messed up, so I decided to throw a 3.25# chuckie (my first one ever) on the smoker tonight along with 15 habaneros.

Slight chance of Natural Light and Evan Williams black label.
 
If any of you are ever here in Kentucky. Look up the bourbon trail. You won't be disappointed. Being only about two hours away. I've been going almost once a year sometimes twice over the past 3 years.

As far as my Bourbon likings go. Pappy Van Winkle is probably my favorite. But I've only ever tried it once. It's very hard to find and when you do find it it's in the $250ish range. Same goes with the Parkers Heritage collection. Don't think I've seen four roses discussed. Both the single barrel and small batch are very good. Same goes for Elijah Craig and Blanton's. And the obvious ones like Wild Turkey, Jim Beam(Devils Cut is my favorite), Makers Mark, Eagle Rare And Woodford Reserve. All of which have different choices from the years aged to the type of finish.

Someone else mentioned Ancient Age. And they were spot on! Here you can get it for under $20. And it's on par with most of the stuff you can get for around $30.
 
Just make sure you don't confuse ancient age with ancient ancient age 10 year. That's what you really want. Sadly, I can never find the AAA 10 year here.
 
 
I know I've already said it in this thread, but I cannot stress how good Evan 1793 is for the price.

I implore everyone to try it.
Picked up a bottle of the Evan Williams 1783 recently. While I don't think it's quite on the par of Maker's Mark or Woodford Reserve, it does come quite close, and at only $13 up here, as opposed to $30 +/- for the latter.
 
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It is. Sorry for any confusion.
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Habs are done.  Can't wait to grind them down to flakes,

Those habaneros look great.  Pardon me if I missed the post, but what temp were they smoked at?  Looks like something to do right after I pull some meat off the smoker to use the last bit of coals.
 
If any of you are ever here in Kentucky. Look up the bourbon trail. You won't be disappointed. Being only about two hours away. I've been going almost once a year sometimes twice over the past 3 years.

As far as my Bourbon likings go. Pappy Van Winkle is probably my favorite. But I've only ever tried it once. It's very hard to find and when you do find it it's in the $250ish range. Same goes with the Parkers Heritage collection. Don't think I've seen four roses discussed. Both the single barrel and small batch are very good. Same goes for Elijah Craig and Blanton's. And the obvious ones like Wild Turkey, Jim Beam(Devils Cut is my favorite), Makers Mark, Eagle Rare And Woodford Reserve. All of which have different choices from the years aged to the type of finish.

Someone else mentioned Ancient Age. And they were spot on! Here you can get it for under $20. And it's on par with most of the stuff you can get for around $30.
A buddy bought Pappy Van Winkle for his bachelor party.  I think it was the 15 year (it was a bit over $100) ?  Great stuff.  It's the only time I've had it.  I hear it is pretty hard to get your hands on.

I think I mentioned Four Roses earlier, but I forget.  I just finished a bottle of it last week.  Good and worth the buy, but for my money I'll still take Larceny at a similar price point.
 
Picked up a bottle of the Evan Williams 1783 recently. While I don't think it's quite on the par of Maker's Mark or Woodford Reserve, it does come quite close, and at only $13 up here, as opposed to $30 +/- for the latter.
If you like Maker's, try Larceny.  A 10-20% discount compared to Maker's and I like it even better.  It is closer to Maker's 46 than the standard Maker's in my opinion.  Evan Williams really is some good stuff to keep on the shelf.
 
I made the best pulled pork of my short smoking career this weekend.  Steady flow of Buffalo Trace was crucial to my performance ;).  No whiskey in the cooking, though.  I used some agave nectar in the juice that I put in the foil when I wrapped.  Might try it with a little bourbon, though.  It picked up the sweet taste pretty well.






So, so, so juicy and it pulled with such ease.  I know pork is forgiving, but I really feel like I nailed this one.  250* for about 8.5 hours and then foiled and finished at ~315* for around an hour or so.  Probed tender at 199* and then went for a rest.  Really, really pleased.
 
I smoked the Habs around 260-270 (whatever temp my meat was going). I just tossed them on when I put the meat on and let them go until they felt crispy (between 3-5 hrs). The smoker did a good job of drying them so I didn't need to use the dehydrator.
 
Thanks for the info.  In to the smoker a dozen habaneros will go next time I have it fired up!

What do you use for grinding?  Think a pestle and mortar would do the trick?
 
As mentioned earlier pretty much the entire lineup out of the Buffalo Trace Distillery is great bourbon. Buffalo Trace, Elmer T Lee, George T Stagg, W L Weller, Blantons and of course the elusive Pappy Van Winkle. Many of these fall in the $25-40 range while the Blantons ($50) and Pappy ($100-300) depending on the age (10,12,15,18,20,23). Just a neat side note, the top of the Blantons bottle has a bronze race horse with jockey and each one depicts the horse and jockey in a different position with a letter stamped on the lower leg. If you collect all 8 they spell out BLANTONS and will depict the sequence of a horse race with the jockey celebrating at the end. If you are lucky enough to get one of the 85-90,000 bottles released each year raid the savings and don't share with anyone! This bourbon can be drank easily neat or on the rocks without a hint of burn.
 
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