Bacon fat-washed bourbon,
how we make it.

Fat-washing is a technique that suspends rendered fat in a spirit, lets it infuse for several hours, then freezes the bottle so the fat solidifies and lifts out cleanly. What stays in the liquid is everything that made the fat smell and taste the way it did. The fat itself goes in the trash.

The technique is older than the modern cocktail revival, but the version most bartenders learn today came out of PDT in New York around 2007, where Don Lee built a Benton’s Old Fashioned around bacon-fat-washed bourbon. Standard move in any serious cocktail bar now. Ours included.

Bacon is the right fat for bourbon because most of the work is already done. Curing it added salt and sugar. Smoking it added wood. Rendering it concentrates the result. By the time the fat is in the jar, it carries flavor that would take a half-dozen other ingredients to replicate, and none of them would land as cleanly.

Bourbon and bacon also share a vocabulary. Caramel, smoke, char, brown sugar, oak. The fat-wash does not introduce a new note. It deepens the ones already in the glass.

Render thick-cut bacon over low heat until the fat runs clear. Strain off the solids and reserve the warm fat. Combine the warm fat with bourbon in a sealed jar at a ratio of about one ounce of fat per 750 milliliters of bourbon. Let it sit four hours at room temperature, shake once or twice. Move the jar to the freezer overnight.

The next morning, the fat has hardened into a cap at the top. Crack through the cap, pour the bourbon through a fine cheesecloth or a coffee filter, and bottle the result. The fat goes in the trash. The bourbon, slightly darker, noticeably heavier on the nose, is ready for the glass.

The base bourbon rotates. Ask Dustin which bottle we are washing this month.

The cocktail is an Old Fashioned built on the fat-washed bourbon, with no other variations from our house spec for the standard. The full history of how we build the Old Fashioned is on its own page: Old Fashioned, the long way.

Garnish: orange peel only. No cherry by default. The savor in the bourbon takes the cherry’s job and does it more honestly.

The bacon does not show up in the glass. It shows up on the nose, and the bourbon underneath ends up tasting a little more like itself.

That is the whole project. The fat-wash is not a costume on top of the bourbon. It is a way of getting more bourbon out of the same bourbon.

Does a bacon fat-washed Old Fashioned taste like bacon? Not directly. The drink reads as an Old Fashioned, slightly smokier on the nose, slightly heavier on the palate, with a savory finish you would not get from straight bourbon. The bacon shows up as aroma and weight, not as flavor. Guests who order the bacon one almost never describe it later as tasting like bacon.

What is fat-washing, in plain terms? Fat-washing is a way of moving flavor from a fat into a spirit. You combine warm rendered fat with the spirit, let it sit, freeze the mixture, then lift out the solidified fat. The flavor molecules from the fat stay in the spirit. The fat itself goes in the trash. The bottle ends up carrying the savor without carrying the grease.

How long does fat-washed bourbon keep? Properly strained and stored in a clean sealed bottle, fat-washed bourbon keeps for several months at room temperature behind the bar, longer in the refrigerator. The alcohol does most of the preservation work. We make small batches and rotate through them.

What bourbon do you fat-wash? The base bourbon rotates. We pick something with enough body to stand up to the wash, usually a 90- to 100-proof bottle with a corn-and-char profile rather than a high-rye one. The current pick sits on the back bar. Ask Dustin.

How much is the bacon fat-washed Old Fashioned? $14, the same price as the standard house Old Fashioned. If you want it built on an allocated or single-barrel bourbon, the substitution is priced at the bar.

Can I make this at home? Yes. The render-and-freeze method works on a home stove with a freezer. Use a bourbon you would already drink neat. The bacon should be thick-cut and on the smokier side, not maple-glazed. Strain twice if your first pass leaves the bottle cloudy.

If you skipped down: the bar is at 107 S Main, Historic Downtown Bryan, TX, about ten minutes from Texas A&M campus and Kyle Field. Open every night, evenings to close.