Sharon Vanorny
Bacon meets peach in this gender-defying update of the Outdoorsman.
It’s been over a year since A Pig in a Fur Coat, 940 Williamson St., expanded to include a small bar. The cocktail program is going strong with a new bar manager, Alisha Pauly, at the helm. When Pauly took over this past August, she set out to update some of the drinks on A Pig’s menu, including the Outdoorsman — an old fashioned made with bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup and orange bitters. Pauly brightened the drink by adding peach purée and lemon juice, and renamed it the Lumberjill.
What is bacon-infused bourbon, you ask? It’s not strips of bacon floating in vats of bourbon. Pauly says it’s made through a process called “fat washing,” wherein any fatty flavor, in this case bacon grease, is infused into a spirit. The bourbon is then frozen; the bacon grease rises to the top and congeals and is removed. The result is a salty, smoky, bacon-flavored liquor.
The flavor of the bacon dominates the Lumberjill, but the peach adds a hint of fruit, and the acid from the lemon and orange peel garnish keeps the drink from becoming too rich or heavy.
Finished with the citrus bitters and sweet maple syrup, the Lumberjill makes for an old fashioned with a porcine twist — quite appropriate for this restaurant and its meat-heavy menu.
