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WhiskyDad’s Guide to Father’s Day

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WhiskyDad’s Guide to Father’s Day

Father’s Day is almost upon us (In Australia, it’s on the first Sunday in September) and if your father or husband is a WhiskyDad like me, look no further than my Father's Day guide for the WhiskyDad in your life (not just my own wishlist).

Whisky

The most obvious gift could also be the hardest to choose because you want to buy something your dad will like. My suggestion is to raid his whisky cabinet and find out what he drinks. You could either play it safe and buy what he already has or you could buy him something similar that he may not have tried before. The easiest way to do this would be to talk to the proprietor of a specialist whisky bottle shop and tell them what he drinks and ask for a recommendation of something similar. But if that isn’t possible, allow me to give you some loose rules.

He likes all whisky

By far the easiest dad to buy whisky for since you could buy him just about anything and he would enjoy drinking it. That said, I would look at what he usually drinks and buy something around the same price point.
This WhiskyDad knows what he likes, but what about what he doesn’t know he likes? 
He only drinks Jack Daniel’s

This WhiskyDad knows what he likes, but what about what he doesn’t know he likes? Jack Daniel’s and all its many special and limited editions, is a Tennessee whiskey. What’s a Tennessee whiskey? It’s bourbon, with an extra charcoal filtration step. A great alternative to Jack Daniel’s is another readily available Tennessee whiskey, George Dickel. George Dickel comes in No.8, No.12 and X varieties and my pick would be George Dickel No. 12 as a legitimate (and in my opinion, superior) alternative to Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7.

He’s a Peat Freak

This WhiskyDad loves his whisky smoky. Chances are he will drink anything from Islay but that isn’t the only peated whisky available. Look for any of these, Caol Ila, Bunnahabhain, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman, Bowmore, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Laphroaig; or outside of Islay, Springbank, Longrow, Kilkerran, Talisker, Ledaig or Highland Park. Failing that, anything with ‘Peat’ in the label like independent bottlers Douglas Laing’s Big Peat or Compass Box’s Peat Monster should be fine.

He only drinks the cheap stuff

There’s nothing wrong with drinking whisky that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, but chances are if it’s cheap, it’s a blended whisky. Not all blended whiskies are equal and some are quite expensive. One of the most famous and popular blended whiskies is Johnnie Walker. Johnnie Walker comes in a number of varieties that get progressively expensive of which Johnnie Walker Black Label and Double Black are a good balance of reasonable price and quality.
This may sound a little controversial, but most Irish whiskey is no different to Scotch whisky. 
He likes Irish Whiskey

This may sound a little controversial, but most Irish whiskey is no different to Scotch whisky. If you look at the ingredients and the way both are made, there really isn’t a lot of difference between Scotch and Irish Whiskey other than the country of origin. There are a few exceptions but if you are going to buy an Irish whiskey, buy a Single Pot Still Irish whiskey like Redbreast, Green Spot, Yellow Spot or Powers. These are quintessentially Irish whiskeys and are quite different from any Scotch whisky.



He likes the burn

Does your dad like a whisky that burns in his chest and warms his insides? Then you should get him a cask strength whisky. Cask strength means the whisky is bottled at or near the ABV% it was straight from the cask. Most whisky is diluted with water before bottling to reduce the ABV% to a standard figure such as 40%, 43% or 46%. My pick for a cask strength whisky would be Aberlour A’bunah.
The older the whisky, the more influence the cask has over the flavour and often colour. 
He likes darker coloured whisky

If you dad drinks whisky that is generally darker and more amber than your average whisky, chances are it is ex-sherry cask (barrel) matured. Most whisky is matured in either ex-bourbon or ex-sherry casks. The older the whisky, the more influence the cask has over the flavour and often the colour. Ex-bourbon cask matured whisky usually has a vanilla dominant flavour whereas ex-sherry cask whisky has a dried fruit or Christmas Cake dominant flavour. Oh, he likes traditional Christmas Cake? Then ex-sherry cask matured whisky is a safe bet such as the excellent BenRiach 12 Year Old Sherry Wood Matured.

Something Australian

There are plenty of very good Australian whiskies on the market. Obviously, these are much easier to obtain from within Australia. Most are quite expensive, around $200 for 500ml, but not all are, such as Starward Wine Cask Edition which can be picked up from Dan Murphy’s for around $80-$90 for a 700ml bottle. Being originally from Tasmania myself, it would be remiss of me not to recommend a Tasmania whisky so how about a Lark Cask Strength from the distillery that started the recent whisky boom across the island state.

Something unexpected

There is nothing quite like surprising a Scotch snob with a great-tasting whisky from an unexpected region of the world. Did you know that India produces some amazing single malt whisky? I guarantee your Scotch-loving dad will enjoy either the Paul John Classic Select Cask or Amrut Fusion if they prefer a peated whisky.

Whisky gifts other than whisky

There are plenty of gift ideas for the whisky-loving dad other than whisky; consider some of these.

Something edible

Fancy yourself a bit of a cook? How about making some whisky fudge, some whisky cured bacon or whisky jerky? You could even ‘borrow’ some of your dad’s whisky to flavour it. Just don’t borrow the really expensive stuff.
The world of specialist whisky glassware can be a load of wank, but not all glasses are equal when it comes to drinking whisky. 
Whisky glasses

The world of specialist whisky glassware can be a load of wank, but not all glasses are equal when it comes to drinking whisky. In my opinion, the pinnacle of shape (performance), weight (comfort) and value (some glasses cost upwards of $50 each) is the Glencairn glass. These can be picked up for as little as $10-$17 each and are a great choice for a whisky-loving dad. There is even a more expensive crystal version of the Glencairn glass if you want something a little fancier.

If your dad drinks his whisky with a mixer, go for a nice crystal tumbler instead.

If you want something a little different, how about a quaich? A quaich is a shallow Scottish two-handed drinking cup. They can be made of metal such as pewter or silver but are traditionally carved from wood.

Artwork and accessories

A map of the whisky distilleries of Scotland by Manuscript Maps is an excellent gift for a WhiskyDad and looks great on any whisky fan’s wall. Factor in extra for postage and framing to get the best out of it.

Angel’s Share Glass make some great whisky themed accessories such as Glencairn shaped cufflinks.

Books

There are stacks of great books on whisky that would make excellent Father’s Day gifts. The World Atlas of Whisky is an excellent and hefty coffee table book whereas Whisk(e)y Distilled is more portable by no less detailed.

Pens

Check out these awesome pens, made from ex-bourbon barrels. They can even be personalised – I would love a couple of these myself. Hint, hint.
Image © bourbonpens.com 

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WhiskyDad Makes Whisky Jerky

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WhiskyDad Makes Whisky Jerky




So my wife bought a dehydrator. “What’s a dehydrator?” I asked. “It heats up and dries out food,” she said. “Like an oven?” I replied. “Yeah, but it doesn’t get as hot.” I pondered her response for a moment, “So, like a shit oven?”

Every appliance has a silver lining

I’m used to my wife buying things that are supposed to make our lives healthier, but I didn’t really appreciate the ‘shit oven’ until I asked if it could make jerky!

Jerky, is meat cut into thin strips, often marinated, and then dried to prevent spoilage. It is super tasty and fairly good for you since it is a great source of protein without much of anything else. The shop bought variety is also very expensive considering what it is and how much you get in a packet.

I already had the dehydrator (you can also use a smoker) so I figured I would give making my own jerky a go and since I’m a WhiskyDad, I planned to marinate it in whisky.

Sriracha & Starward Bacon Jerky

First up would be bacon jerky. Why bacon? Because bacon, of course. I settled on making a spicy bacon jerky with a light and sweet, non-peated whisky. The spiciness would come from Sriracha sauce, store bought since I didn’t have the time or energy to make my own. I have only recently discovered Sriracha sauce (found in the Asian food section of your local supermarket) but this sauce made from Jalapeños, sugar or honey and garlic is freakin’ delicious. Where has this sauce been all my life? It is not what I would call a hot sauce, it's spicy, but it is a near perfect mix of spice, savoury and sweetness.

The whisky of choice would be Starward Wine Cask single malt Australian whisky.

Sounds expensive, but it really isn’t. Difficult to find outside of Australia but it’s one of the best value local whiskies commonly available. I often recommend it as a gateway whisky for anyone new to whisky or new to drinking whisky neat. It’s light and quite sweet so I thought it would pair with the bacon nicely.

I bought some smoked streaky bacon from Costco and prepared the following marinade in a ceramic dish:

90ml of Starward Wine Cask single malt whisky
90ml or 6 x Tablespoons of Sriracha sauce
2 x Tablespoons of Manuka honey (any honey would do or substitute perhaps half as much brown sugar)
3 x Cloves of fresh crushed garlic

I mixed all the ingredients in the dish and added 500g of bacon. Next, I sprinkled salt and pepper over the top, covered the dish with plastic cling wrap and put it in the fridge.

The bacon needs to marinate for three days, being turned in the marinade half way through with some more salt and pepper added.

After three days, I removed the bacon from the marinade and placed it on a chopping board. I sliced the bacon in half and then the widest part in half again so that all the pieces were roughly the same size. Next, I placed the cut pieces on some paper towel and gently removed some of the excess marinate with more paper towel. I didn’t want to remove it all but I also didn’t want it dripping with liquid when I put it in the dehydrator.

Finally, I laid the pieces of bacon onto the dehydrators removable trays making sure the pieces were not touching each other and gave them a last sprinkle of salt and pepper.

I set the dehydrator to 70˚C and the timer to five hours.

Half way though I rotated the shelves and after five hours I removed the jerky and laid it on pieces of paper towel. I placed alternating layers of paper towel, a single layer of jerky, then more paper towel onto a dinner plate. This removed a lot of oil from the surface of the jerky since bacon is much fattier than the meat you would generally use for jerky. Once the jerky had cooled to room temperature, I removed it from the paper towel and placed it in a plastic zip-lock bag for storage in the fridge. Jerky can last for a while, but I wouldn’t keep bacon jerky for as long as you would leaner beef jerky for instance – But let’s face it, bacon jerky is going to be eaten pretty quickly.

So how did it taste?

It tasted awesome! The texture was quite good. You want the jerky to kind of bend and tear. If it snaps, it’s cooked too much. If it bends without tearing or is floppy, it isn’t cooked enough. The Sriracha Starward Bacon Jerky had a savoury whisky flavour at first with a sweetness coming out as you chewed. Lastly, there was a spicy finish that was just the right amount of spice and not too hot; pretty much damn perfect for a first attempt, if you ask me.

It actually reminded me of tasting a whisky (although a bacon flavoured whisky) since the flavour developed as you ate it rather than hit you all at once. 

Peat Monster Beef Jerky

Next up, I decided to make a more traditional beef jerky. I chose a corned beef silverside, also purchased from Costco. Roughly shaped like a loaf of bread, this cut of meat was already quite lean and having already been cured in a salt brine it would dry quite well in the dehydrator. All I had to do to prepare the meat was to remove the thin layer of fat from one side and cut out a couple of fatty parts before cutting it into roughly one inch thick steaks. You need to cut across the grain for this step. The steaks were about the size and thickness of café-style slices of bread. Next, I placed each steak in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer.

This time the marinade would be soy sauce and smokey whisky based. I chose Compass Box Peat Monster as the whisky. The marinade was a mix of the following:

½ Cup of soy sauce
60ml or 4 x Tablespoons of Peat Monster whisky
2 x Tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
1 x Teaspoon of garlic powder
1 x Teaspoon of smoky paprika powder
1 x Teaspoon of chilli powder
½ x Teaspoon of ginger powder
½ x Teaspoon of cayenne powder
1 x Tablespoon of Manuka honey

Once partially frozen, I removed the steaks I wanted to use and sliced them (with the grain this time) into 3mm thick strips. This made approximately 600g of beef strips that I then placed into a bowl of the marinade, covered it with plastic and put it in the fridge for three days.

I followed the same dehydrating process for the beef as I did for the bacon; five hours at 70˚C. 

So how did it taste?

The beef turned out great, as good as any packaged jerky you can buy and much cheaper to make yourself. It had a great chewy texture that almost melts in your mouth and while it didn’t have the same evolving flavour like the bacon jerky did, it delivered a nicely balanced savoury hit from first bite to last chew. The whisky flavour was quite subtle so you could probably use more if you wished. I have plenty of meat left over in the freezer so I may experiment with different whiskies for future batches but my first attempt was a hit.

So do yourself a favour and buy a ‘shit oven’ to make yourself some tasty whisky marinated jerky. It is super easy to do and the results were surprisingly amazing.
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Making Whisky-Cured Bacon

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Making Whisky-Cured Bacon


There comes a point in a man’s life where he has to make a decision. A decision that once made, can never be taken back. A decision that will change him forever. That decision is, to try and make his own bacon.

I have been meaning to do this for some time, but the planets finally aligned recently and I had a great piece of farm-bought, pork belly roast in the fridge just calling out in a piggy voice ‘Make me into sumptuous home-made bacon, oink!’ Who was I to deny the post-mortem wishes of a piece of porcine perfection? So at that moment, I had the equally great idea to not only make bacon, but to make ‘whisky-cured’ bacon!

Bacon is a meat product, sourced from fatty cuts of a pig, typically the pork belly. It is usually preserved through curing with salt, either in a dry rub or liquid brine. After curing, the bacon is typically dried, baked, boiled or smoked, before being fried to eat. Hmmmm...Bacon.

I wanted something smoky naturally, but not medicinal or industrial tasting like a Laphroaig or Ledaig. 


Having never made bacon before, I bought myself a DIY bacon kit. But now seeing that the kit contained two plastic zip-lock bags, a small jar of curing salt (ordinary table salt with a small amount of Sodium Nitrite) a small jar of sugar (ordinary) and a pair of single-use meat thermometers, I’m pretty sure I can go it alone next time. You can use ordinary salt to make your bacon but it will go a nasty grey colour. The small amount of Sodium Nitrite means the bacon keeps that nice pink colour.

The next step was to choose a whisky. I wanted something smoky naturally, but not medicinal or industrial tasting like a Laphroaig or Ledaig. I also didn’t want to go nuts using something like an Octomore. I decided on a Talisker 10 Year Old, pleasantly smoky and with an obvious peppery finish; a perfect match for salty bacon.

What I started with


  • Large zip-lock bag;
  • 1.5kg pork belly roast (ribs removed, skin on);
  • 25g of curing salt;
  • 20g of ordinary sugar + 60g brown sugar; and
  • 100ml of Talisker 10 Year Old whisky.

How it is made

That’s it, not much to it really. First I placed the meat in the zip-lock bag, then I spooned the whisky over the meat. Next, I rubbed the salt into the meat and then the sugar. Lastly, I wrapped up the bag around the meat, trying to keep it in contact with the liquid, held it in place with some rubber bands and put it in a plastic tray in the fridge. I have to say, it smelt amazing even at this ‘raw’ stage.

Just like making a good whisky, making bacon takes time; seven days to be precise. You need to turn the bacon, once a day for seven days and then it is ready to finish off. I chose to finish my bacon by smoking over hot coals with a mix of apple wood chunks and mesquite chips. I used a trusty charcoal Webber for this and prepped it how I would any low-and-slow smoke. Make sure the meat is offset from the hot coals so that it isn’t cooked by radiant heat. You may need to use an aluminium foil shield to protect the meat. The target smoking temperature is 125˚C. You need to smoke the bacon for long enough to reach an internal temperature of 155˚F (about 68˚C). The single-use meat thermometers are designed to pop out when the meat reaches this temperature but you can use a digital thermometer – I used both.

The meat smoked away and the only thing I had to do was check the temperature periodically and add more smoking wood if required. My bacon smoked for 2.5 hours before it hit the desired internal temperature. I then removed it from the Webber and allowed it to rest.


When it had cooled, I sliced it into rashers and it was good for frying.


But how did it taste?

It almost dissolved as I ate it and I could feel my arteries squeezing in approval. 

There is nothing quite like tasting your own bacon.

 I’m not sure if it was the best bacon I have ever tasted in my life (it was certainly up there) but I enjoyed eating it like no other bacon before. It was smoky and sweet, but not too sweet, a little salty and buttery in the mouth. It almost dissolved as I ate it and I could feel my arteries squeezing in approval. Needless to say, I consumed pretty much all of it within 24 hours.

What about the whisky?

Oh yeah, the whisky. I am not sure exactly how much flavour the whisky imparted on the bacon. I’m sure there was some, but I think it may have been overshadowed by the wood smoke. Next time I will make some without smoking it and I expect more of the whisky flavour to show through.

So there you go, scratch that one off my Bucket List. I have now made my own bacon and it was good. Hmmmm...Bacon.
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