Connor Sites-Bowen's newsletter covers a lot of ground. I'm excerpting his most recent to give you a taste of his writing.
Last month he joined his sister and my spousal unit on a pilgrimage and a celebration. The spousal unit had just emailed the final proofs of his forthcoming book, Understanding Computer Dynamics. I figured he deserved a vacation, and a chance to hang out with his children, bourbon lovers all. As I'm not a fan of that spirit, I signed them up for Chef Ed Lee's Bourbon Extravaganza, and I hung back in California.
I'm a big fan of Chef Ed Lee. In my chronicles of the late, lamented Gourmet magazine, his work marks a major transition in food journalism in the early 2000s. Before Chef Lee, Francis Lam and David Chang brought their personal history and scholarly chops to the Gourmet, the magazine's coverage of Asian and Asian American food was mostly the work of British ex-spies and restaurant reviewers.
What I couldn't imagine then, was that Chef Lee would tackle so many of the human issues in the hospitality industry, not to mention the crisis of COVID. I'm so glad my family could reune in such company!
American Spirits
by Connor Sites-Bowen (Excerpted with permission)
[One of dozens of rickhouses Buffalo Trace is building on the bluffs above their distillery. The final project cost is expected to be $1.1 billion.]
The trip came together around chef Edward Lee, a Brooklyn-born kid of Korean parentage, whose Louisville restaurant 610 Magnolia blends Korean and Southern cooking with great delight and genius. You've probably seen him on PBS's Mind of a Chef, or on Top Chef circa 2012. His cooking philosophy is expressed eloquently and marvelously in Buttermilk Graffitti, a collection of essays. Smoke and Pickles is his cookbook.
Of the book and the man, the late Anthony Bourdain said
Of the book and the man, the late Anthony Bourdain said
Edward Lee is one of America’s most important young chefs―and what he has to say with his delicious food and in the pages of [Smoke and Pickles] will help redefine American food as a whole. Better start reading and start cooking. The future is here.
Right now, Chef Lee's focus is on fermentation and distillation - spirits. Kentucky is the home of bourbon, America's spirit, and he's been watching from the restaurant side of the business as the bourbon industry has boomed in recent years. Old players are building out huge new construction. New distilleries established in the 2010s are producing mature, fine products, at premium prices.
[Sweet Mash fermentation at Peerless. A man of military training, owner/founder Corky Taylor opted for this start-fresh-daily process rather than jumpstart each batch with the leavings of the last one, the 'sour mash' process.]
Though it comes in glass bottles as a translucent liquid, bourbon (and all alcoholic spirits) are the compressed, calorie-rich results of incredible amounts of vegetable and fungal growth. The jewel-like quality of a good bourbon shelf traces its fine colors and rich scents to a compression of thousands of years of sunlight, rainfall, soil, and plant care.
The mash bill (ratio list of ingredients) is agricultural grains - a majority of corn, rye, wheat, malted barley, or malted rye grain. The fermentation process is so amazingly productive that once it gets going most distilleries let it ferment in open stills. The corn beer is so rich with yeast at this stage that it self-heats and self-stirs, giving off huge plumes of carbon dioxide. You can dip your unclean hand into this corn brew and the microorganisms on it would not find purchase here - indeed, one 'trick' on many bourbon tours is letting people dip a pinky into the tank and taste the 20-proof partial product.
After fermentation and distillation, the alcohol is put into charred oak barrels, from which the spirit derives the majority of its scent and flavor, as well as the characteristic color spectrum - orange-yellow-brown. The oak is a managed natural product as well, sylviculture or forest management. Most bourbon barrel oak is quercus alba, the American White Oak, though a variety of Old World oaks (geographically from France) are also used. The barrels must be oak because oak tree cells have tyloses, special microscopic growths which under stress fall off and block the wood's internal channels, uniquely preventing leaks and most evaporation.
White Oaks can live for half a millenium, and many are harvested after they've passed their centennial year. With 45 staves to a barrel (Maker's Mark 46 refers to a mysterious extra stave for flavor), one bottle of bourbon from one barrel can represent 4500 years of oak lifetime, and the simultaneous springs and summers of thousands of grain stalks, biologically processed and then thermodynamically reduced down to a potent, intoxicating escence.
[Me, my sister Fiona, and my dad Richard, at Ouita Michel's Honeywood restaurant, in Lexington.]
Local bourbon is local food, and the distilleries we visited were accompanied by visits to some of Kentucky's best kitchens too. With Chef Lee as our ambassador, we sat down to close dinners with chefs, owners, bar managers, and other food system experts, trying flavors and ingredients tied to Kentucky's land, seasons, and ever-advancing culture.
Local bourbon is local food, and the distilleries we visited were accompanied by visits to some of Kentucky's best kitchens too. With Chef Lee as our ambassador, we sat down to close dinners with chefs, owners, bar managers, and other food system experts, trying flavors and ingredients tied to Kentucky's land, seasons, and ever-advancing culture.
It was wonderful to gather with family, and to gather over food - both things are even more precious in a COVID world. The rest of the group had brothers on a road trip, spouses on vacation, sisters fleeing the Texas summer for a long weekend, old friends out adventuring together - a surprisingly wholesome group of day-drinking bourbon tourers. The takeaway line from the trip was a comment made by co-guest Ian, who well into our first evening dinner and drinks, jokingly told my dad 'Hey man, control your kids.'
[The heritage rickhouses at Woodford Reserve. Note the micro-gauge rail, not for trains but for barrel transport from filling to storage.]
Bourbon has been and will be big business. It's not a fast-moving product like moonshine whiskey. The timetables involved, the storage and associated risk of capital compound to make bourbon a banker's business & a rich man's industry. Prohibition didn't shut down production completely, but did concentrate holdings down to just a few surviving firms, whose licences during prohibition did not allow them to produce whiskey, but did allow them to distribute it medicinally. These 7-10 firms cashed out the other ~ 200 distillers operating at the time, buying out their inventories, blending them, and selling it all along.
It was not until the end of the 20th century and the start of this one that bourbon became a desired, select spirit. Long campaigns for regional tourism have paid off. Single Barrel programs have proved enormously popular - bourbons are 'chaseable' the way Pokemon cards and Candy Crush trophies are. At this point, they're an American export - a luxury symbol worldwide. We were told at Buffalo Trace that a 1% rise in Chinese bourbon consumption would soak up the entire production day for the whole state.
It was not until the end of the 20th century and the start of this one that bourbon became a desired, select spirit. Long campaigns for regional tourism have paid off. Single Barrel programs have proved enormously popular - bourbons are 'chaseable' the way Pokemon cards and Candy Crush trophies are. At this point, they're an American export - a luxury symbol worldwide. We were told at Buffalo Trace that a 1% rise in Chinese bourbon consumption would soak up the entire production day for the whole state.
Based on the projected demand, the industry is building big projects now, as fast as they can. At Buffalo Trace, the parent company (Sazerac) has sunk $1.1 billion into more than 20 new rickhouses (The technical term for the oak-racks-with-some-walls-
[Striking workers outside Heaven Hill Distillery, which wants to move them to a potential 24/7 production schedule, cut medical benefits, and limit overtime. ]
Heaven Hill Distillery, maker of Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Old Fitzgerald, Two Fingers Tequila, Blackheart Rum, and more, makes around $500m per year in revenue. The bourbon industry at large has revenues around $4.3b per year. The company just spent $19m renovating the 'Bourbon Experience" tourist area of their production campus. And yet... They offered a contract with less money, health, or stability for their workers.
Hard pass - 420+ production workers are out of contract and on strike. Support Local 23D. Boycott Heaven Hill products, and let them know why. We did not stop there on our trip.
