Cooking with Bourbon

Travel Distilled suggests several ways of cooking with bourbon, including marinating meat, using bourbon in sauces, and even making bourbon chutney.

Cooking with bourbon offers a unique way to infuse rich and complex flavors into a variety of dishes. Bourbon is a versatile spirit and can be used to enhance savory dishes, desserts, and even sauces. Here’s a potted guide to cooking with bourbon.

Four Roses Small Batch Select Kentucky Bourbon

Cooking with Different Styles of Bourbon

Different styles of bourbon can have varying effects on dishes. Lower-proof spirits, such as Coopers’ Craft, require less time to cook off the alcohol and allow the flavors of the dish to shine through without overpowering them.

Wheated bourbons like Maker’s Mark add sweetness and warmth, making them ideal for desserts, jams, jellies, and sauces that pair well with smoky flavors.

Spicy and peppery high-rye bourbons like Four Roses Single Barrel work well with dressings, fruit-based dishes, and ingredients that are rich and creamy.

Bourbons in Sauces

When using bourbon in sauces, you can replace the traditional wine deglazing method with bourbon to add depth and flavor to the dish. After removing the meat from the pan, add a quarter cup of low-proof bourbon and let it simmer until reduced to a thick syrup. Then you can add cream or stock along with salt, pepper, and other seasonings to create a really flavorful sauce.

Bourbon Marinades

Bourbon can also act as a tenderizer and marinade for meat. By combining bourbon with brown sugar or sorghum, soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce, garlic, shallots, olive oil, and various seasonings, you can create a tasty marinade for meats like chicken, pork, or beef. After marinating, you can discard the marinade or simmer it down to create a delicious sauce.

See my post on Bib & Tucker Double Char Bourbon Cooking Recipes for three delicious bourbon recipes.

Bourbon Chutney?

Creating a bourbon-based chutney is another tasty option. By cooking down canned diced tomatoes with granulated and brown sugars, apple cider vinegar, ground ginger, ground cloves, and bourbon, you can make a delicious chutney. This chutney can be stored in the refrigerator and used as a spread for brie with crackers, or served with grilled shrimp, scallops, or cumin-roasted pork sandwiches.

Bourbon and Desserts

Bourbon is also a fantastic addition to desserts. Rehydrating fruits like golden raisins, dried cherries, prunes, or pineapples with equal parts bourbon and warm water can create a flavorful mixture that can be used in cakes, crisps, or as a topping for ice cream.

Adding bourbon to sorbets can also enhance their texture, although it’s important to note that it can lower the freezing point, so using a low-proof spirit is advisable.

Other Ways of Cooking with Bourbon

In addition to the above, here are some more culinary uses of bourbon: it can be used to flavor confections, desserts, and barbecue sauces. Bourbon finds its way into recipes like pies, glazed ham, beef tenderloin, bread pudding, shrimp dishes, pecan pie, sauces, truffles, sweet potatoes, pork loin, and more.

I remember having a bourbon bread pudding years ago in a restaurant in, I think, New Orleans. I’ve forgotten the name of the restaurant but boy, I remember the bourbon bread pudding!

Don’t miss my companion post on Bourbon and Food Pairing from my book, Bourbon for Beginners.