How to make bacon tequila

Because bacon bourbon is so totally 2008, I decided to make something that I believe would be new and different (and awesome): bacon tequila.

Here’s the procedure I followed last night, based on a synthesis between the bacon bourbon made famous by NYC cocktail bar PDT and the wonderful bacon vodka crafted by Robin Wynne of Toronto’s Fynn’s of Temple Bar.

You’ll need:

• bacon

• a 750-millilitre bottle of tequila

Giddy up!

1. Fry up four slices of bacon. Make them close to crispy, because won’t a bit of burny flavour be nice? I used two slices or Berkshire and two of wild boar bacon, because the woman at Whitehouse Meats at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market said they were both pretty smoky. And Robin told me smoky is good.

2. Take the rendered fat from the pan and put in a mason jar. I believe PDT  uses an ounce of bacon fat, but I figure tequila bacon is sort of a more-is-more kind of enterprise, so I dumped in all 2 1/2 ounces or so.

3. Add tequila. Wait a few hours for fat to solidify.

4. Drop the bacon into the jar, put in the freezer, and wait. Two weeks, maybe?

5. When your tequila is sufficiently bacony, use a funnel and double layer of cheesecloth (or coffee filter, less ideally) to strain out the fat when you decant into container of choice. Based on my past bacon vodka and bacon bourbon experiments, the bacon probably won’t taste good at all. Toss it.

I’ll post an update when it’s done, and recipes that employ bacon-infused tequilas. See you in mid-March!