A meaty Martini
After an evening spent flirting and chatting at the bar, your witty repartee and charming good looks have brought her back to your place. The lights are dim, candles are lit, jazz is playing softly, and you had the foresight to hide your comic book collection earlier in the day. All that stands between you and an unforgettable night of passion is one perfectly made Martini. You suavely gather the necessary materials: Two crystal glasses, pre-chilled of course. A mixing glass. A long spoon. A cast iron frying pan. A slice of bacon.
The meat sizzles as it hits the frying pan; so does she. While the bacon crisps you pour vodka over ice. You give it a seductive stir, the metal spoon barely clinking against the glass. You pour the Martinis, snap the bacon into pieces, and tantalizingly drop them into the drinks. She cocks an eyebrow, curious. You toast, she sips. A look of disgust creeps across her face. Suddenly she has an important meeting in the morning and really must be going. You fool, you’ve used a non-premium bacon flavored vodka!
This is where Bakon, “a premium bacon flavored vodka,” might have saved your night. It was only a matter of time before two of the food world’s biggest trends — flavoring vodkas and putting bacon where it doesn’t belong — collided with potentially disastrous results. But knowing that it was my sacred duty as a Crispy on the Outside blogger to sample all things bacon-related, I broke down and bought a bottle.
The aroma is definitely of bacon. More specifically, of crispy bacon. It smells like there’s a bit of char to it. The taste is of bacon too. In some bacon flavored spirits smoke becomes the dominant taste, but this actually has a meaty flavor to it.
Is that a good thing? Well, it’s not like I’m going to come home and have a serious debate about whether I’d rather sip on Bakon or my Yamazaki 18 year single malt, but on the rocks it’s oddly fascinating. It tastes and smells as much like bacon as I could hope it would. It doesn’t taste like an industrialized, artificial version of its namesake flavor, as so many flavored vodkas do. This is a product that could have been horrible and, thankfully, it’s not. It’s just very weird.
As a professional mixologist my palate is tolerant of a lot of crazy stuff though, so I also had the restaurant staff try it out (some of them neat, some on the rocks). They weren’t so forgiving. Five of them absolutely didn’t like it, one thought it was pretty good, and one more liked it enough that he took the glass and finished it off. It’s not for everybody.
To be fair, most flavored vodkas aren’t meant to enjoyed on their own. They’re meant to be mixed. Bakon recommends putting the vodka in a Bloody Mary, so I tried out a simple one of those. This turned out pretty well, with the bacon flavor coming out more strongly than I thought it would and lending an additional savory note to the drink. If there’s a killer app for bacon vodka, this is definitely it.
The Bakon website also suggests making a chocolate cocktail. I’m not opposed to the bacon and chocolate combination, but I’m skeptical of this one. If anyone tries it, let me know.
So should you buy this product? You could make your own bacon vodka, using the process I describe here, but I doubt you’d much improve on this. (On the upside, you would have leftover bacon to eat.) It makes an interesting Bloody Mary and is a fun thing to have around for its novelty value. On the other hand you might have a better time with bacon flavored bourbon, which has more complexity and some complementary flavors to it. But if the idea of bacon flavored vodka appeals to you, you’ll probably be happy with a bottle of Bakon.
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Bitter
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