We nearly died for our bacon.

At least, that’s the story I’m sticking to. At the 2008 Tales of the Cocktail, the annual booze bacchanal held in New Orleans, mixologist Don Lee, demonstrated how to make bacon-infused bourbon at a seminar on “How To Make Your Own Cocktail Ingredients.”

It wasn’t part of the scheduled proceedings, and he’d only brought a small jug to sample. Seated in the back of the room, a nasty rumor began to circulate….there might not be enough bacon bourbon to go around! The crowd started to murmur, some threatened to stampede, others began to sidle toward the front of the room, snatching cups off of trays headed to luckier others. Bacon bourbon!  Get outta the way!

And then, whew. There was enough to go around after all. But just imagine the potential fatalities, the imminent bloodshed. Mmm, bacon bourbon.

Don’t Blame Escoffier

Today, forward-thinking bartenders across the country are drawing inspiration from carnivorous concepts. A year ago, all we heard about was the “fat-washing” technique. Simplified, this means infusing liquor with something that has fat in it – such as bacon. Once infused, the liquor is then popped in the freezer. While the liquor doesn’t freeze, the fat particles do, allowing them to be easily skimmed from the liquor. After a quick strain – voila, bacon-infused and fat-free booze.

But we didn’t invent the carnivorous cocktail. We’re just the latest in a long, long line of meat-eaters to discover it and play with it.

Like so many other wonderful epicurean atrocities, French chef Auguste
Escoffier is getting the credit and heat for the current bumper crop of bacon-addled, blood-soaked, toothsome carnivorous cocktails. Yes, he’s on record with the first “fat-washing.” At the turn of the last century, Escoffier poached foie gras in Armagnac, piling decadence upon decadence, using the fat-washed spirit to flavor sauces.

But consider also “Cock Ale.” Dating back to the late 1600s, basically, it consists of soaking an old rooster in alcohol for some time (and throwing away the rooster) – and it was supposed to have restorative powers. Voila – early infusion therapy. Mom always said that chicken soup could cure everything.

The ancient Mongolians drank meat-enriched spirits too, specifically lamb. According to A Soup for the Qan, by Paul Buell & Eugene Anderson, in 1330, Hu presented the Mongol emperor Wenzong, the great-grandson of Kublai Khan, with an enormous dietary manual, Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink.  Buell and Anderson translated this book into English, including a recipe for lamb stew-infused vodka. Lamb-tinis, anyone?

Bar Chef and Beyond
Cut to present day:  we can’t seem to get enough of salt and sugar, spice and smoke and meat bundled together. We’re wild about “umami,” the fabled fifth taste that reads as rich, mushroom-y, and meaty.

Mixologists are going further, brewing up meaty demi-glace bitters, infusing cognac with Iberico ham and using Del Maguey Mezcal Pechuga, a smoky mezcal notorious for its filtration through chicken breast. The term “bar chef” has taken on new, literal meaning. A step beyond the “seasonal produce” discussion, a small group of devoted “farmer-bartenders” are known to debate which artisanal hogs yield the best pork for cocktail infusions.

Todd Thrasher, of Restaurant PX in Alexandria, VA, read the account of Escoffier’s adventures in Armagnac, and immediately began to visualize meaty cocktails. Perhaps this should be unsurprising coming from the man who also thinks tobacco is a fine cocktail ingredient.

In 2005, Thrasher conceived a drink called The Pear of Desire, which used foie gras as garnish. “At the beginning it wasn’t so well-received,” he admits, “but a week into it a buzz started happening and everyone started ordering it.”

Thrasher now receives acclaim for his luscious McGriddle cocktail (bacon-infused vodka, egg whites, maple syrup). In Chicago, we have Adam Seger’s Ham and Cheese cocktail (a sweet and savory mix of Iberico ham-infused cognac, passion fruit puree, garnished with a Manchego cheese tuile). And New York restaurant Please Don’t Tell continues to feature the stampede-worthy bacon-infused bourbon in their riff on a classic Old-Fashioned.

And don’t forget the garnishes. Bacon still seems to be the garnish du jour, whether it’s glazed in maple syrup, dipped in dark chocolate, or pulverized into smithereens to rim a glass, Margarita-salt style. But sing also of speared mole salami laid across the top of martini glasses, skewers of olives interspersed with pepperoni rounds, and Bacon Bloody Marys, practically a meal in a glass thanks to assorted garnishes piled high.

Weenie-Tinis
But don’t let the mixologists of the world take all the credit. Home bartenders are having just as much fun. I still fondly remember an eGullet.com beverages thread with the header “The birth of weenie-cello,” chronicling one enthusiast’s personal endeavor to create hot-dog-infused vodka.

This was 2003 and well before the trend of meat infusions took off in the mainstream. So the road to Weenie-cello “was a long and arduous one,” born of a desire to avoid putting down one’s drink in order to consume a big, dripping hamburger. “So while I’m getting fatter, I’m not getting any drunker.” The only sane solution: combine the two tastes.

The post was soon greeted with replies like “Is this a joke?” and “You have way too much time on your hands.” But eventually, a recipe for the Weenie-tini and the shot-glass-sized Eenie-weenie-tini materialized.

Of course, it was promptly followed by requests for a Spam-hattan, while another wise guy suggested mixing the Weenie-cello with the rye-inflected liqueur Kummel: “It tastes just like rye bread. You could make the first corned beef and rye cocktail. Rim it with coarse mustard seed and you’ve got a cocktail fit for my grandpa.”

To be honest, I was a little sad when I heard about the recent release of Bakon vodka, the first commercial spirit to incorporate meaty flavors. Did this mean that amateur and professional bartenders would stop having fun at the expense of bacon?  Had the era of meat mania finally drawn to a close? And then I learned a dirty little secret:  it’s a vegan product. That’s right, not a shred of actual porcine goodness in the bottle.

We may still have a bacon-bourbon-fueled stampede ahead of us yet. Get outta the way!