Billionaires Bacon--bacon with brown sugar sprinkled on it and then cooked in the oven--is one of the most...oh bother, is it even necessary to describe it? It's bacon, bacon coated with brown sugar for goodness sakes, it needs no further description. But there is one thing that is, perhaps, even better: Buttered Billionaire's Bacon Bourbon. Buttered Bourbon you may have imbibed, Billionaire's Bacon you may have munched on, but the combination of the two renders a hot drink that will make you wish it would stay winter for a lot longer.
First, making bacon bourbon. Easy. Cook some bacon. Save about 1-2 ounces of the bacon fat, then put it and a 750 ml bottle of bourbon into a glass jar. Let it sit for several hours/overnight. Then put it in the freezer for several more hours, or over another night (depends how cold your freezer is); the fat will solidify, and the alcohol just gets cold without freezing. Then you can strain the bourbon back into the original bottle through cheesecloth, or lacking that, a coffee filter (don't forget to put your straining device into a funnel, or you'll have bourbon running all over the kitchen floor). You could also double strain the bourbon, straining it into another glass jar and then straining it into the original bottle. I would probably suggest the double straining method for extra purity.
OK, so, you've got bacon bourbon! Now, to the recipe. I don't know if anyone else has invented this--I imagine someone has; either way, I'm calling it...
Hot Buttered Billionaire's Bacon Bourbon
Ingredients:
2 ounces of bacon bourbon
5 ounces of hot water
1 ounce of brown sugar syrup (recipe follows)
small bit of butter (1/3 of a tablespoon perhaps)
Heat up 5 ounces of water to near boiling. About 1 min. 40 sec in microwave.
Pour bourbon into a drinking vessel.
Pour hot water into bourbon.
Pour 1 ounce of brown sugar syrup into the mixture and stir a bit.
Put in the butter and let it melt.
Drink slowly on a cold night.
Its a simple recipe, but you will be amazed at how good it is. Now, you may be thinking, as I did at first, that 5 ounces of water is a lot for that little bit of bourbon. But the genius to this recipe (the base recipe is not mine of course, I just added the idea of baconizing it) is the brown sugar syrup--the depth and taste of the syrup mixes with the water and perfectly compliments the bourbon, boosting the depth of what would otherwise be watery bourbon.
Brown Sugar Syrup
Ingredients:
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 cups water
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
In a sauce pan, bring both sugars, corn syrup, and water to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer vigorously until thickened to a syrupy consistency, 10 to 15 minutes.
Store it in the fridge. Should be good for around 6 weeks (around the refrigerated life of butter, though I hear from some butter can go longer).
