potables – The Kaintuckeean

A Merry Christmas Wish with Bourbon Iced Cookies

The Traditional Julbord at My Parents

Each year on Christmas Eve, my folks hosted a smorgasbord with all the Scandinavian delights one might desire. Friends and family gathered at #MyOldKYHome for food and drink that lingered late into the night.

But the homeplace in Lexington’s Western Historic Suburb was sold earlier this year and change is afoot. The Fiddler still works to muster the word, “Tradition,” but things won’t be the same. Year after year, the menu of smorgasbord has remained virtually unchanged. Our family never has taken change (particularly in the food arena) very well.

Tradition. And food. A dangerous combination.

But a few years ago, one small change was made to the Christmas Eve cookie lineup: gingerbread.

Maker’s Mark Gingerbread Cookies.

Not boring gingerbread cookies, mind you. At the 2010 World Equestrian Games, my wife picked up a cookie cutter at the Maker’s Mark store shaped like a bottle of Maker’s. Her immediate thought was making gingerbread cookies.

And are they great. Sure, gingerbread cookies are, well, not the most exciting cookie in the world. (Unless you find a talking one a la Shrek. “Not my gumdrop buttons!”) Find a recipe you like and go with it. But first, go buy the cookie cutter from Maker’s online store or make the pilgrimage to Loretto. For the icing, we used:

2 cups powdered sugar

teaspoon Maker’s 46

2 tablespoons milk

Red food coloring

Mix the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk together. Once dry add small amounts of milk and stir until the icing is runny enough to drizzle lightly from a spoon. Now add the food coloring, remember to do this a drop at a time as a little bit can make a dramatic difference.

Oh, the icing… my was it good!

Whatever your tradition, or whether you’re changing things around some this year,

Merry Christmas!

Jalapeño Beer at Country Boy Brewing

Country Boy Brewing – Lexington, Ky.

At first, I was a little skeptical at the concept. Gimmicky? Perhaps. Worthy of trying? Absolutely.

It took me a while to make it down to Lexington’s Chair Avenue to explore and taste the brews of Country Boy Brewing Company, one of the several microbrews to open and be embraced by Lexington within the past year. Since I first learned of Country Boy, I wanted to taste their Jalapeño brew. On the day I visited, they had two of their twenty-four taps featuring the mighty jalapeño.

The Jalapeño Smoked Porter is spicy, but pleasantly so. Even better for my palate was the Jalapeño Smoked Porter XXX which was slightly mellower on the Scoville scale thanks to a some aging in bourbon barrels. With either, however, I’m not sure how I’d make it through an entire pint (having some food from a nearby greasy spoon would probably do the drink, but jalapeño beer really ought to be coupled with some food). Though no food is served at Country Boy, they welcome outside food. And Tolly-Ho is really close!

Even without food, the $1 sampling glasses allowed me a flight of five of Country Boy’s delicious and unique brews. My other three tastes were of the English Brown Ale (Brown Chicken/Brown Cow, on nitro at 4.8%), the incredibly unique Schnickelfritz Spruce (a 5.7% beer brewed with fresh spruce tips), and the Cliff Jumper IPA. All brewed in house and all quite tasty, but it is the willingness to experiment outside-the-box (jalapeños, spruce tips) that sets Country Boy Brewing apart.

As for location, it certainly is different than Lexington’s other newly opened watering holes. Lexington Beerworks occupies a historic North Limestone structure and West Sixth Brewing has transformed the old Rainbo bread building. On the other hand, Country Boy’s taproom and brewery are located in a nondescript, modern industrial building of concrete block and corrugated sheet metal. If blue laws were different, this plain building could be lifted and relocated to any of the smaller towns surrounding Lexington and fit in perfectly. I wouldn’t object if their taproom did just that.

Inside, Country Boy delivers on its name with a homey, relaxed experience. There is no pretense here. Just good beer and good times.

Beta Testing and Kentucky Coffee Stout

In software development, there are two basic types of testing: alpha and beta. In alpha testing, you don’t let your product out-of-house as you work out kinks in the system. Beta testing brings the product to the public – or a small subset of the public – for feedback.

I believe Kentucky Coffee Stout is in its own version of beta testing. With much hype on twitter throughout the preceding day, a keg of the first new brew from Alltech’s Lexington Brewing Company was tapped at Lexington Beerworks. A few other locations also have the stout on tap.

Alltech launched Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in 2006 and this is their first new beer since. Other brews in the lineup are Kentucky Ale and Kentucky Ale Light. I’m a huge fan of all of their beers and was very excited to try Kentucky Coffee Stout so I didn’t tarry on my walk to Lexington Beerworks.

A few sips in, I remembered to snag a photograph. As I talked with the barkeep and a few other patrons, we all had very similar tasting notes. First and foremost, the flavor was great. Starting with a good beer like Kentucky Ale and adding in an excellent coffee bean, Alltech has produced a fantastic flavor.

Flavor is the beer’s strength, but its body is its weakness.

The coffee beans are from parent company Alltech’s Café Citadelle – a fair trade coffee from Haiti. (Haiti is one of the world’s poorest countries, is located on the western half of Caribbean island Hispaniola, and had a devastating earthquake in 2010 bringing worldwide attention and assistance but has since gone forgotten.) I first tasted Café Citadelle at the 2012 National Horse Show in Lexington (sponsored by Alltech) and found the coffee to be really good. Dumping twelve pounds of the stuff into a batch of beer? Brilliant.

The problem with Kentucky Coffee Stout, however, was its body. A sip of a stout beer (think: Guiness, an Irish stout) should leave a slight weight on your tongue. The head on a well-poured stout should occupy about the top inch of the glass, but by the time the Kentucky Coffee Stout hit the bar its head was gone. A slight twirl of the glass left no foam stuck to the side of the glass, again something that should occur in a stout. I can attest that it was not the fault of the barkeep; I’ve already had a few perfectly poured stouts at the Beerworks. This fault, unfortunately, lies with the beer itself. I believe I dubbed it a stout with erectile dysfunction.

It is therefore a question of Shakespearean proportion: would a beer by any other name taste so good? Ignoring the label ‘stout’ for a minute, you’ve got a damn good tasting beer. Dark and flavorful, maybe the texture is purposeful? We’ll find out when this beer leaves beta testing. And it will. Because it is good.

kernel: Town Branch Bourbon a Dandy Nightcap

Town Branch Bourbon (neat)

It is undisputed that Kentucky’s signature is bourbon. But Kentucky’s signature city, Lexington, hasn’t produced any bourbon since 1958 when the James E. Pepper distillery closed.

That all changed last month. On October 20, Lyons’ Spirits – a subsidiary of Alltech – launched its Town Branch Bourbon just before the National Horse Show arrived in Lexington.

Town Branch, of course, is a reference to the stream which flows underneath downtown Lexington. As the middle fork of the Elkhorn Creek, it is what attracted settlers to Lexington. In 1779, Colonel Robert Patterson led a group of settlers in the establishment of the blockhouse for what would become Lexington. The blockhouse was in fact quite close to that middle fork of the Elkhorn.

The following year, 1780, James Pepper began distillery operations in Lexington using water harnessed from the Town Branch itself. The city of Lexington grew on the axis created by the Town Branch – it is a central part of our community. Even the label of the bourbon bearing its name illustrates a map of downtown Lexington with a blue line tracing the path of the waterway.

Today, an effort is underway to return the Town Branch to its place of import. Uncovering parts of the stream in parklike settings with trails is underway and business efforts like the Town Branch Market and the newly drinkable Town Branch Bourbon bring attention to the cause.

As for drinking Town Branch Bourbon, I’ve given Town Branch a few tastes over a few nights to gauge how it really touches my palate. It can be a bit peppery, but it is rather smooth — it almost seems somewhat underaged, which could be the result of its lower-than-usual proof. Still it is enjoyable both neat and on ice, though I’ve yet to mix it with an Ale-8. At a price point of about $22, it is a great purchase.

Maker’s Mark Cookies

Maker’s Mark Cookies. Merry Christmas!

In our family, we don’t change the Christmas cookie lineup often – perhaps once a generation. This year, our Christmas cookies have a new star this year: gingerbread. Not boring gingerbread cookies, mind you. At the World Equestrian Games, my wife picked up a cookie cutter at the Maker’s Mark store shaped like a bottle of Maker’s. Her immediate thought were gingerbread cookies.

And are they great. Sure, gingerbread cookies are, well, not the most exciting cookie in the world. Find a recipe you like and go with it. But first, go buy the cookie cutter from Maker’s online store or make the pilgrimage to Loretto. For the icing, we used:

2 cups powdered sugar

teaspoon Maker’s 46

2 tablespoons milk

Red food coloring

It takes a lot of food coloring and we’ll continue to play with the recipe. (Please share suggestions!) Maybe work some Maker’s into the dough batter as well. But the icing… my God was it good!

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Maker’s Mark Tasting

Maker’s Mark Tasting @ World Equestrian Games, Lexington, Ky.

One of the vendors unique to Kentucky set up at the World Equestrian Games in Lexington is Maker’s Mark. Its temporary building looks similar to those in Loretto and its product is available throughout the Games. In the Kentucky Experience, there are bourbon tastings where you can sample the three kinds of Maker’s. I enjoy bourbon, but Maker’s holds a special place in my heart. Oh…and I love Maker’s 46. (I’ve enjoyed it since it was first released a few months ago!) It is incredibly smooth and the perfect sipping bourbon. Maker’s Julep is a great blend of bourbon, sugar and mint – a wonderfully mixed mint julep straight from the bottle!

If you enjoy Bourbon or want to experience a taste of Kentucky, enjoy a Maker’s tasting. And invite me to enjoy it with you!