“After over a decade of attending and planning and participating in panel discussions, I’d become pretty convinced that a) panel discussions suck and b) there’s no reason for them to ever go longer than 25 minutes,” Ken Wheaton said. “But last night, I sat through a panel that ran a little over two hours and I didn’t want it to end.”

Brisket heavyweights Bill Durney of Hometown BBQ, lauded chef John Tesar, Jake Dell of Katz’s Deli, and Texas Monthly’s Daniel Vaughn sat down to talk shop—and brisket—in this story from the archives.

The post Ken Wheaton – How Long Can You Talk About Brisket? first appeared on Brisket King.

Who Will Be Crowned the 2023 Brisket King?

Bret Lunsford, Blue Smoke, New York, NY

Michelin-starred Chef Therdtus “Tony” Rittaprom, Zabb Pu Tawn NYC special pairing with Singha

Robert Austin Cho, Kimchi Smoke, Westwood, NJ

Joey Machado of Texas Charcoal, Seguin, TX- will be rocking the Pig Beach station as their guest

Sean Keever, Big Guns BBQ, Fishkill, NY

David Gill, Wildwoods BBQ, Wildwood, NJ

Darlene Lawrence, Sands Jerk Hut, Brooklyn, NY

Mario Chape, Big Papa Smoke ‘M, Bogota, NJ

Eli Goldman, Tikkun BBQ, Queens, NY

Ruben Santana, Bark Barbecue, Time Out Market, NY

Joe Musngi, SmoKING of Meats, Belleville, NJ

Cenobillo Canalizo, Morgan’s Brooklyn Barbecue, Brooklyn, NY

Eric Vitale, Eazy’s Craft BBQ, Kenilworth, NJ

Jeff Schmidt, Hindsight BBQ, Waterbury, CT

Leland Avellino, Avellino Family BBQ, Norwalk, Connecticut 

Richie Holmes, Juicy Lucy BBQ, Staten Island, New York

Chef Aniwat Khotsopa, Zaab Zaab, Woodside, NY

Kam Rai Thai, Astoria, NY

We are thankful for our community 501c3 partner, Friends of Firefighters, and our venue host Pig Beach. A portion of the net proceeds will be donated to the Jeff Michner Foundation. Please buy your tickets early to support Food Karma Projects and make future events possible.

The post 2023 Brisket King Participants first appeared on Brisket King.

“The complexity of what makes a good whiskey…means that there is no perfect formula. Whiskey will always be a bit of a science and a bit of an art. And that’s where so much of the interest comes.” 

Dylan Heuer: Tell me about your introduction to the craft spirits industry. 

Nicole Austin: I didn’t think I was going to get into this industry. It wasn’t a long term plan of mine. I went to school for chemical engineering thinking I was going to go into the environmental field and I did. I went and worked for a big environmental engineering firm out of college and the biggest thing they did was wastewater treatment; very glamorous, right? I was standing in a wastewater treatment plant in Queens, thinking ‘is this what I went to school for?’ I knew I wanted to do something different and was looking around, trying to figure out what that was. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and really building up this passion for food and for whiskey. A bartender happened to mention a particular whiskey and how it was distilled. I just had this really simple, ‘oh shit’ moment. I literally went to school to study how to distill things and it hadn’t really occurred to me that was a job I could do with whiskey.

This was more than 10 years ago now. And at that time, I didn’t have the right last name to work in Kentucky and I didn’t have the right degree to work in Scotland. The industry was feeling very closed. The craft whiskey industry was only just getting off the ground and I had been getting a bit frustrated trying to figure out where an opportunity might be. I read that Kings County had just become the first distillery to be licensed to produce whiskey in New York since prohibition. So I basically showed up at their door like, ‘I’m a chemical engineer. You’re welcome, I will work here now.’ They were sort of like, ‘great ’cause we have no idea what we’re doing; we don’t even know if this is a viable business or if this is just going to be a hobby.’ Honestly we didn’t even know, would anybody buy bourbon that wasn’t made in Kentucky? At that time it was a very small operation, 5 five-gallon stills – basically a glorified closet in Bushwick. But that’s what got me into the industry. Them taking me on – they didn’t have any money, but to make me a partner cut me in with sweat equity. 

We all kept our day jobs at the beginning when we were trying to figure out, was this a viable career? What really made the difference for us was proving, yes, people were interested. I remember the first time we opened our doors to sales. We had expected maybe 100 people and we had lines out the door. I had my entire family visiting me for the holidays and rather than being out on the town in Manhattan, I had my mom and two of my aunts working furiously to bottle more so that we could sell it. That was the big turning point of asking ourselves, ‘can I quit my day job and make this a full time career?’

“At that time it was a very small operation, 5 five-gallon stills – basically a glorified closet in Bushwick. But that’s what got me into the industry. ”

Dylan Heuer: And in the past decade, how have you witnessed this industry change and grow?

Nicole Austin: I got lucky on timing. Between 2009 and now, 10 years later, it’s quite obvious that craft whiskey is something, that there’s a lot of value there. Having had the good fortune to be coming into it right when the industry was getting going and have the opportunity to get to know all those people and kind of learn simultaneously with all of them – that’s really opened up all the opportunity for me now.

A lot of what kind of fed into that was the boring but critical work of changing laws to allow the creativity and passion that people have to become commercially viable. You know, part of building a sustainable business, is there has to be opportunity for it to grow. And alcohol is such a historically heavily regulated industry. It made it so hard to make anything get off the ground. The states that start to modernize their laws  you know, and allow small distilleries to do things like sell to consumers at their visitor centers or sell directly to retailers – as soon as they start to modernize those laws, you can see the industry start to grow right away. 

There’s this curiosity about spirits that we didn’t have a long time ago, that’s really helped fuel the fire of this industry. All those things were there and they just needed the opportunity to come out. To make that happen is a lot of just boring, grinding, legislative work. There’s a lot of unsung heroes behind this industry that no one will ever know about. 

Dylan Heuer: During the last decade you have worked at distilleries in New York, Ireland, and now Tennessee. For most people, only a couple of places – and only a couple styles – come to mind when they think of whiskey. What is something you’ve learned about the diversity of this spirit?

Nicole Austin: There have been hundreds and hundreds of dissertations written on the whiskey industry. We have this great and sophisticated understanding. But still, the complexity of what makes a good whiskey – the fact that our ingredients come out of the ground and not out of a lab; this sort of esoteric element of time and seasons; and the complexity of people’s sensory experiences, how they put different smells together and interpret them – means that there is no perfect formula. Whiskey will always be a bit of a science and a bit of an art. And that’s where so much of the interest comes. You know, we’re not making widgets. And I think what’s so exciting about this industry.

“You can’t just stay in a lab and make a beautiful liquid and never go and talk to people about it. That’s something I’ve really come to understand –  that the experience of whiskey is so much more than just the good liquid.”

Dylan Heuer: Tell me more about your current role and what it exactly it means to be a master blender. 

Nicole Austin: My title now is General Manager and Distiller, which means that I am the blender, but I also have many other jobs. And I really wouldn’t have it any other way. It means that the buck stops with me for decisions about everything, from how this whiskey is produced to how it’s sold. I’m a bit of a control freak, but I think to truly be impactful in the industry, every aspect of the consumer experience is a part of that. You can’t just stay in a lab and make a beautiful liquid and never go and talk to people about it. That’s something I’ve really come to understand –  that the experience of whiskey is so much more than just the good liquid.

So I appreciate the opportunity to kind of touch every part of the business. But of course, my passion is still in the blending and the whiskeys themselves. And that job is about a thousand times more boring than people expect. So many people are constantly offering to me, like ‘if you be ever need another nose, I’ll come work with you.’ And then they realize what that entails is sitting in the lab for like six hours and not actually drinking a single drop of whiskey, but just smelling all of them, and also not talking. Actually that’s pretty grueling, teasing out the minutiae of, ‘is that a pineapple or is it more of a mango smell?’ There’s not a lot of folks in the world that really want to dig into the minutiae of that. But that’s where you go from good to great. 

Dylan Heuer: How can we all become better consumers and tasters by honing our skills of smell and taste? 

Nicole Austin: Again, my answer is going to be so much more boring than people would want it to be. But I think the best way to get better is to read, having an expanded vocabulary about how to talk about whiskey. All of our noses work, you know. There’s a certain amount of sensory training and sheer practice that makes you good. But realistically, if I told you what to look for, most people could smell the difference between mango and pineapple. It’s just a matter of giving your brain an expanded list of what it can look for. So reading tasting notes I think is actually the best way to become a more educated whiskey taster.

“From the outset, we always knew the intent was to create a whiskey category that would hopefully outlast us by hundreds of years.”

Dylan Heuer: Turning to NY Rye Week, what was your role in founding Empire Rye?

Nicole Austin: I was definitely a part of the group that founded it, but the real credit for getting all of us together and pushing this idea forward came from Christopher Williams from Coppersea. But six of us got together and I think we all really thought a lot about the gravity of what we were creating. From the outset, we always knew the intent was to create a whiskey category that would hopefully outlast us by hundreds of years. And we took that quite seriously, to think about how should we do that responsibly? What might that look like? What are the key elements of making something that allows for creativity, but also the kind of quality control that would help the whole category be distinguished in the market? It was an incredible thought exercise. And I feel really proud of what we came up with, and also that we were all willing to be flexible in service of those goals. 

Dylan Heuer: And how did you work to craft Kings County Empire Rye?

Nicole Austin: The more important thing that we did was use a pretty high percentage of rye, higher than was required. And then also we launched it with small barrels. Using small barrels was a way to take this broader category of Empire Rye and then put Kings County’s style onto it. I always believed, especially for a smaller distillery, that the best way for us to make something that was very high quality was using the small barrels to give you – from the same relatively small volume of liquid – more things to blend with. Take the same 50 gallons of whiskey, and if you put it in one barrel, that’s only one kind of sensory note you get out of it. If you take 50 gallons of whiskey and you put it in 10 different five-gallon barrels, well now you have 10 different notes to write your song with. 

“This was really the first time in history that the federal excise tax on distilled spirits has been reduced…Overnight, basically it took thousands of distilleries from being not profitable to being profitable.”

Dylan Heuer: Since leaving New York, you have continued to advocate on behalf of the craft spirits industry as a founding board member of the American Craft Spirits Association. How are you working to support growth in this industry? 

Nicole Austin: I’m no longer a voting member of that organization because my distillery is not independent. But I remain an affiliate member and I continue to serve as co-chair of the legislative committee with Mark Shilling. The two of us and the entire legislative committee have been really working hard on passing an extension for the federal excise tax reduction. This biggest thing that I’ve accomplished, in maybe in my entire career in this industry, was in 2017 we passed the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, which was a joint effort across all six industry groups of beer, wine and spirits. This was really the first time in history that the federal excise tax on distilled spirits has been reduced, and it created an 80% reduction in that federal excise tax for small producers. Overnight, basically it took thousands of distilleries from being not profitable to being profitable.

And that was just a massive, massive impact. Mark and I actually got a tattoo together to celebrate that accomplishment. So both of us have a tattoo on her arm that says 2017, then the initials of the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act. If that doesn’t tell you how committed we were, I don’t know what would. But when that was passed it had a two year sunset. That means that by the end of 2019, if we didn’t get an extension pass, it is going to go away. And it has the potential to put a lot of distilleries out of business or force them to seriously scale back their operations. So we’re working really hard to try and get that extended and hopefully, eventually made permanent. 

Dylan Heuer: Is New York Rye Week a good model that other places may use to support craft distillers and local farmers? 

Nicole Austin: The thing that’s so exciting about New York Rye Week, and also about just Empire Rye as an idea, is that it really returns to this idea that the whole industry is what matters. The group is bigger than any of the individuals, the sum of the whole is larger than its individual parts. That collaboration of New York producers and that understanding that the more people they get interested in New York rye style will help us all grow – that the rising tide really does raise all boats – is what made New York rye successful. You look around the world at places like Scotland and Scotch whiskey – any one of them on their own wouldn’t have been able to accomplish nearly what’s been accomplished for Scotch whiskey as an entire category. And we really looked to that and learn from that and I think that’s the strength of New York Rye Week. 

The post Rye Week Featured Interview: Nicole Austin, General Manager and Distiller at Cascade Hollow Distilling Company first appeared on Brisket King.

If Martin Scorsese ever made a movie that focused on the real people that make up New York’s food empire, we’d like to think our friend Jimmy Carbone would inspire a character. If you’re a longtime supporter of meat and beer, or just new to the game, Jimmy’s name should immediately register a smile on your face. As the owner of Jimmy’s No. 43, a dearly departed East Village cavern that shaped New York City’s beer scene for decades to come, Jimmy’s passion for bringing people together was on full display. From cassoulet contests to comedy shows, I’m not even able to explain in words how absolutely cool and unique this place was. However, like a true New Yorker, Jimmy has side hustles, including serving as the founder of Food Karma NYC and host of Beer Sessions Radio on the Heritage Radio Network

We spoke to Jimmy about his newest event Pastrami on Rye taking place Wednesday October 16th during the Third Annual NY Rye Week, which runs from October 12-20th, 2019.

Jimmy Carbone, host for Pastrami on Rye. Photo: Miguel Rivas Photography/Instagram

Jimmy, You’re known for some of New York’s best food events. Where did the idea for Rye Week come from?

I’ve been a supporter of the regional heritage grains revival for many years. I’ve partnered up with the Grow NYC Grains project in the past and have focused several events – and radio episodes – on the rise of local malts in beer. In 2017, Tom Potter of New York Distilling Company reached out. Several New York State distilleries had created the Empire Rye Whiskey project and were launching. It made sense to me – supported the use of a grain, rye, that grows well in the Northeast, by making a product that sells, rye whiskey! That year (2017) I hosted a radio show, and a rye tasting at Roberta’s pizza during the first annual NY Rye Week, which was a precursor to this event.

This is the 3rd year of NY Rye Week and I wanted to host a complementary event to what distillers, brewers, and bars were planning in NYC. Of course, my event would include food. I’ve hosted innovative brisket and bbq events in the past, so pastrami came to mind. A few years ago I co-hosted a pastrami tasting night at WNYC’s Greene Space too.

 Photo: NY Distilling/Facebook

Can you give us a sneak peak at some of the food and drink creations that might guests experience during Rye Week?

The Pastrami Tasting: East Village Meat Market, Morgan’s Brooklyn Barbecue, Randall’s Barbecue, Nestor Laracuente da bklyn_pit_rat, and Chocolate Covered Pastrami by Roni-Sue’s Chocolates and Clay Gordon of The Chocolate Life.

Other Food: Rye Pancake from Amy Halloran, grain salads from River Valley Community Grains, rye bread from Moonrise bakehouse and other food like Consider Bardwell Cheese and Grilled Veggies by Just Add Beer Sauce. Plus we’ll have six distilleries and a welcome cocktail!

How do you come up with all of these creative events? Is there a process?

It takes hard work and good teams. Every time we host an event, the seed is planted for another. Rye has been on  my brain for four years. I had asked writer Lew Bryson. Author of “Tasting Whiskey” what he thought next cool event should focus on.he said “rye whiskey.” Later that year, Tom Potter at NY Distilling Company called me about Rye Week. I hosted a radio show and a whiskey tasting with pairings at Roberta’s Pizza. Roberta’s chef served whiskey mash fed roast pig, rye bread rolls, several side dishes with rye grains… working closely with grow NYC grains project. Seeds were planted.

I also hosted a Slow Grains event this past summer, NYC brewers choice, featuring beers made from local malt, so I’ve been connecting with grains people all year. Cynthia Lamb is opening a bakery in sunset park, she only use a regional grains, mills them herself, for her bread. She wolf bakery makes a killer sprouted rye bread. Amy Halloran will be cooking rye cornmeal pancakes.

What’s the hardest part of pulling off an epic food event?

Building a good team and having strong communications between chefs and producers. Ultimately we are CONNECTING food and beverage producers, most are craft or farm based, with consumers, the media, and the wider industry. The team is important. This year, there has been a solid stable of producers who have committed to full season of events this past year – Morgan’s Brooklyn Barbecue, Romilly Cider, Alewife, Spirits, NY Distilling Company, Just Add Beer and Rocket Fuel.

Photo: Justin Aharoni

If you could only eat pastrami sandwiches on rye or drink rye for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

I love the NYC food scene, especially traditions. Pastrami to me is the quintessential NYC meat. Not bacon, not burgers: pastrami. Reuben, a combo corned beef and pastrami, Katz’s Deli.

Rye Drink…20 years ago, I’d have said sazerac. Chelsea green publishing says Stone fence, rye whiskey and hard cider cocktail. Five years I made a point if exploring northeast craft rye whiskeys. I take mine neat. McKenzie Whiskeys from Finger Lakes Distilling, Rock & Rye from NY Distilling Company, and Raw Rye from Coppersea.

The post A Catcher of the Rye: Why Jimmy Carbone Wants to Eat Pastrami with You first appeared on Brisket King.

Photo by David Loaiza

“In 2008 I was looking around thinking about starting a distillery and at that point, there were no distilleries in the city…But it just felt like something that was ready to happen.”

Dylan Heuer: The history of distilling in New York City goes back hundreds of years, but in the decades since prohibition this local industry nearly vanished. Why did this void exist and what has inspired you to help fill it?

Tom Potter: The history of distilling goes back to the 1600s. The Dutch began distilling possibly as early as the 1640s. And the first known distillery was on Staten Island – which is one of the early small colonies – and then [more followed in] Manhattan and Brooklyn. By the 1700s, they had moved from Dutch to English control and the distilleries in the city made gin – since both the Dutch and the English had traditions of gin making – and also whiskey. The most prominent Brooklyn distillery was down on the Brooklyn waterfront, what’s now Brooklyn Bridge Park. That was the Pierrepont Distillery and they were a whiskey making distillery. 

It’s a great history. New York was one of the earliest sites for distilling in the United States. Similar to brewing, we had a very decentralized distillation scene where there were small distilleries all over the place and very few large distilleries. It wasn’t until prohibition that it was shut down. At that point, the small distilleries were mostly closed for good. Between the ‘30s and the ‘60s, there were still a few large distilleries hanging on, but very few.  New York city was the corporate headquarters for some conglomerates [but] it didn’t actually do much distilling.

So in 2008 I was looking around thinking about starting a distillery and at that point, there were no distilleries in the city. I knew there were a couple of other folks that were thinking about it, but it was very much an unknown. We didn’t know how the city would react. We knew that permitting and licensing would be a challenge. But it just felt like something that was ready to happen.

“It’s hard to argue that the corn of New York is any better than the corn of Kentucky, but the rye of New York is better.”

Dylan Heuer: Tell me more about how you make whiskey today at NY Distilling. How long have you been open, what equipment are you using, and where do you source ingredients?

Tom Potter: We opened on December 5th, 2011, which was the anniversary of Repeal Day, so it was a happy day for us to open, a happy accident. And our equipment is a Carl Still, [from the] Christian Carl company in Germany. Back then, 2010-11, there were no manufacturers of small stills in the United States because there were no small distilleries. The Christian Carl company was a very old company, a couple hundred years old, and they had survived and thrived making stills for artisan producers in Europe. So it’s a 1,000 liter still. And then we have two 3,000 liter fermenters and a 3,000 liter mash tun. It’s a multipurpose still, kind of like the jack-of-all-trades still, that’s great for gin [and] it’s great for whiskey.

We only make rye whiskey. We decided before we opened that we would focus strictly on ryes. At that time it was pretty unusual because it was a tiny part of the American whiskey scene. It has since grown wonderfully. It’s grown almost ten fold, since 2009. But back when we were planning the distillery, of course we couldn’t know that. We did believe that rye was a very exciting category. It was historically tied to New York and we felt like it was a chance for us to do something  that was out of the shadow of the great bourbon distilleries down South, so that we could create our own way and start making spirits that would be unique. 

From the start we’ve had a partnership with an upstate farmer named Rick Pedersen and he is one of the more prominent organic farmers upstate. He was one of the very first New York farmers to grow hops again – this was back probably 20 years ago, but he’s always been open to experimentation. So when we started the distillery, I reached out to him and asked him about rye. It turned out that he had been growing rye forever, but that there wasn’t much of a market for it. He just used it as a cover crop, which is especially important in organic farming. For him, the idea of a market for this rye that he had been growing, but just plowing under every year, was delightful. So we’ve been working with him from the start. Our mash bill is now 75% rye, roughly 15% corn and 10% malted barley. 

Dylan Heuer: Tell me more about what makes you passionate about rye. 

Tom Potter: We believe in rye and that was kind of a lonely place to be back seven, eight years ago. But we really felt rye was a product that New York could do a uniquely great job on. And there’s a couple of reasons. One is that the history of whiskey in America has a lot of different threads, but two of the main ones are bourbon and rye. And as bourbon has become more and more associated with Kentucky and the South, it leaves an opening for those of us in the North to concentrate on rye. 

And historically, that’s what we made. New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania – we were rye producing states back in the 1700s and 1800s. It’s our heritage. New York City has a long cocktail history, and rye whiskey was the base for the classic American whiskey cocktails – Old Fashions, Sazeracs and Manhattans. 

Finally, from an agricultural perspective, rye grows best in cold climates. Rye loves rocky soil. It likes cold, hard winters. New York is a great place to grow rye. You can grow corn just about anywhere. It’s hard to argue that the corn of New York is any better than the corn of Kentucky, but the rye of New York is better. There’s a connection with  the distilling and the agriculture. This is an agricultural product. It’s got seasonality, it has terroir [and] the grain is part of that. 

Dylan Heuer: Your commitment to creating a market for New York rye goes beyond your own spirits. Tell me about the impetus for founding Empire Rye.

Tom Potter: It was in 2015, at the American Craft Spirits Association Conference, which was in Denver that year. We were hanging out, the New York distillers, and we started to talk about a rye whiskey. There was a group of us [who] became the six original founders [of Empire Rye]. We agreed a key to the success for New York grown rye whiskey would be to band together and to establish some quality controls and distinctiveness to make sure that New York became known, for not just rye whiskey, but for really great rye whiskey.

So we argue back and forth. The tension was in keeping enough room for creativity and variety, but to demand that the quality be there. We ended up with a few simple rules, which had a profound effect. [We decided Empire Ryes] had to be at least 75% rye in the grain bill, which is important. A lot of the commercial ryes are 51%. rye. So they’re just barely ryes. If they had 2% less, they’d be bourbons. So 75% rye, which has to be New York grown rye. The entry proof has to be not more than 115. And then finally we thought it should be at least two years old so that it could be a straight rye whiskey. 

Those were the founding principles after lots of argument back and forth. And we all went back and started to make it. The first Empire Ryes were available exactly two years later. March of 2017, we had our first Empire Rye. Then in 2019,  this year, we had our first bottled-in-bond Empire Rye, four years old.  

“[Rye whiskey] was historically tied to New York and we felt like it was a chance for us to do something  that was out of the shadow of the great bourbon distilleries down South, so that we could create our own way”

Dylan Heuer: How has this label evolved since?

Tom Potter: We started with six distilleries and at that point, we opened it up to any distillery in New York that wanted to become a member of our association. We stressed this was a non-exclusive club, you just had to follow the rules. At our last New York State Distillers Conference, I think there were 19 distillers who had a whiskey laid down that would become Empire, and another four or five distilleries that had committed to do it this year. So as soon as next year, there will be close to 20. And I don’t doubt that a year or two from now, they’ll probably be closer to 30 Empire distilleries.

This was the first effort to define a new state style since Tennessee whiskey. I don’t doubt it’s going to be the last, there’s already been some other States that have warmed to the idea. But this was the first and it got a lot of really nice attention. There were articles in The Times, Whiskey Advocate and others. They’re really treating the idea with interest and respect. We’ve got now a couple dozen distilleries working away on this style; it’s gonna become something and not just in the United States. There’s an opportunity for New York distilleries to really shine; to do something that’s unique and very high quality. 

Dylan Heuer: What makes NY Distilling Company’s Empire Rye unique?

Tom Potter: So of our particular whiskeys, there are two that are Empire. One is our applejack finished Ragtime. Our flagship expression, is Ragtime Rye Whiskey. The flagship is a minimum of three years old, but some barrels could be as old as five or six years. So it is not an Empire Rye, because our oldest barrels don’t quite meet the Empire standard. But [using] that as our base, we have two variations on that, which are purely Empire. The first one is our applejack finished Ragtime. That is two to three years old and then we finish it in an applejack brandy barrel. In our case, we’re sourcing those from the Black Dirt Distillery, who are our longtime partners. It’s, at 100 proof, got lots of the spicy rye character that our Ragtime has. It does have the mellow notes from the aging, the caramel and vanilla. But it also has a light green apple on the nose, and it really works well with the rye. It’s sort of the perfect fall whiskey. 

Then our most recent Empire expression is Ragtime bottled-in-bond. I love bottled-in-bond as a category. It means it has to be at least four years old and it has to be distilled, aged, and bottled in the same state. Bottled-in-bond is an old fashioned category that dates back to 1897. And it was one of the original consumer protection laws that used to be important and kind of fell off. But my theory is that it’s going to become an increasingly important category for artisan whiskey because there’s a big chunk of whiskey which has artisan looking labels on it, but they’re made at the big factories. You can buy barrels, and bring it to wherever you are, and then put your name on it. If you’re a bottled-in-bond from New York, you know, it’s actually a New York distilled whiskey, not one that’s made in Indiana or Kentucky and then slapped with a New York label. So I think it’s an increasingly important category for artisan producers and it’s also great just as a whiskey style. 

Dylan Heuer: This is the third annual NY Rye Week. What are you excited about this year?

Tom Potter: Events like Pastrami on Rye that Jimmy’s producing – I’m really happy that the idea of Rye Week is resonating beyond just New York Distilling. The first year we kind of organized everything and that’s the way anything gets started. Last year it grew, and this year, there is a wider variety of events across the state than ever.

It’s just really exciting to see the idea get picked up by distillers, but then also to get people like Grow NYC really excited about it. We have Nordic cuisine that’s growing. Restaurants like Agern others that are embracing the new Nordic cuisine that’s based around some pretty old ingredients, including rye. There have rye beers, which we didn’t have, except for a few historic examples. So I’m excited that the idea has caught its own fire. It’s expanding organically and I’m excited that it’s really found a resonance in New York state. 

The post Rye Week Featured Interview: Tom Potter, New York Distilling Company first appeared on Brisket King.

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Food Systems Network NYC’s annual meat panel Sustainable Meat Distribution: Channels and Challenges, the Second in a Series on Distribution, which was rescheduled due to Hurricane Sandy, will take place tonight, November 28th from 6:30-8:30 pm at Brooklyn Winery, (213 N. 8th St., Brooklyn, NY 11211). Moderated by Mary Cleaver (Founder and President, Green Table + Cleaver Co.), FSNYC’s 2nd annual Meat Panel will focus on the relationships and business practices that tackle the challenges of getting grass-fed meat from the farm and into the city.

For more details please visit the FSNYC website announcement.

The post Sustainable Meat Distribution with FSNYC first appeared on Brisket King.

Buy Tickets Here:  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/209900

A special Meat Week screening of Green Beef with film maker Michael Crupain, MD, MPH and producer of The Dairy Show 

Author Michael Pollan has taught us about industrial meat production.  It’s three times bad.  First, it’s bad for the animals – unnaturally confined and fed hormones to make them grow and antibiotics to keep them alive.  Second, it’s bad for the environment – conventional production of feed grain depleting land and poisoning water, long-distance transportation consuming fossil fuel, and concentrated animal waste despoiling landscapes.  And, third, it’s bad for our health – the meat unhealthy, particularly in the case of corn-fed beef cattle.

Michael Crupain decided to expand the scope of his site, The Dairy Show, to include more areas of agriculture, beginning with a report about grass-fed beef.  Green Beef is an entertaining and eye-opening 40 minute report chronicling grass-fed beef from the pastures of Grazin’ Angus Acres to the plates of restaurant Local 111.  Along the way, Michael talks about the science behind the ability of ruminants to eat grass and discusses the history of beef in America with author Betty Fussell, environmental impact and climate change with author Anna Lappe, animal welfare with AWA program director Andrew Gunther, and nutrition with author and professor Marion Nestle.

Of pastured animals as food, Michael Pollan wrote, “It’s true that prodigious amounts of food energy are wasted every time an animal eats another animal – nine calories for every one we consume.  But if all that energy has been drawn from the boundless storehouse of the sun, as in the case of eating meat off …pasture, that meal comes as close to a free lunch as we can hope to get.”

Join Michael Crupain at this special Meat Week screening hosted by Jimmy’s No.43 and Slow Food NYC.  Proceeds will help support the programs and activities of not-for-profit Slow Food NYC, including the Urban Harvest program of good food education for New York City kids at 11 schools in the South Bronx and East Harlem, on the Lower East Side, and in Brooklyn and at two urban farms in Brownsville. These programs reach more than 1,000 children.

The story of grass-fed beef.

The post Green Beef Trailer first appeared on Brisket King.

Here’s a photo of Jimmy and Jessica cooking…

…accompanied by Jessica describing the tasting (all sourced from what was available at yesterday’s greenmarket) followed by some sage (no pun intended!) advice from Jimmy about cider.

US Green Market Cooking Demo

Jessica Wilson
Warm bread salad

Serves 4 to 6
2 cup beef kielbasa med dice
2 cups diced up bread of choice(fresh or left over)

1 washed whole leek sliced in rings
3 green onion sliced rings
1 apple grated on box grater
1/4 cup chiffinode sage leaves
2 cups of torn kale
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cider or sherry vinegar
Juice from one apple( or cider 1 cup)
Salt & pepper to taste
Optional- Aged cheese of choice gratted on top

Place a large sauté pan or wok on med high heat once hot add 1/2 of the olive oil then leeks, green onions stir for 1 min then add kelbasia for a couple mins add apple stir  add bread  stir add remaining oil then add kale and sage. deglace with vinegar and apple juice season grate cheese toss and plate

Happy cooking!

The post Greenmarket Demo/Tasting with Jimmy, Jessica Wilson first appeared on Brisket King.