Cooking With Beer, Whiskey and Spirits

Why Bourbon?

Bourbon with pasta?! Everyone thinks of a white wine mixed in with their pasta sauce, but I can’t let this secret pasta ingredient sit unrevealed any longer. The Bourbon adds a sweet and savory taste to the sauce, complimented with the smokiness of bacon and the refreshingly woodsy flavor of rosemary and oregano.

I love this recipe, and I know you will too. It’s something that you just can’t get enough of.

Gathering the Ingredients:

Let’s get one thing clear, the best bourbon to use will be the one you enjoy to drink the most. If you don’t like drinking bourbon, just buy any bourbon from you local store and it can be used in this recipe.

This is what you’ll need for the sauce:

-1/2 cup of bourbon

-1 tsp Black pepper (Add more if needed)

-1 tsp Salt (I use pink Himalayan, but sea salt is fine)

-2 tsp Dried Rosemary

-2 tsp Dried Oregano

-5 strips of bacon (cut into small pieces)

-1 TBS Olive Oil

-1/2 cup of chopped white onions

-3-6 cloves of garlic (I usually cut each one into 4 sections, you could even cut them in half)

-3 eggs

-1/4 cup of whole milk

-Plenty of grated parmesan cheese (You’ll likely need about a full cup, but you may need to add more)

-12 oz Bowtie pasta

-1 cup Pasta water

Making the Start of the Sauce:

It’s important that you add the ingredients in the order that I put them, otherwise you could end up with soggy bacon or burnt Oregano… or even worse, a sauce with a strong alcohol content.

Step 1– Add 1 TBS Olive Oil to a medium sauce pan and set temperature to medium. (The pan will remain uncovered the whole time)

Step 2– Once your oil is brought up to temperature, add your bacon. This step is important as you don’t want to over cook your bacon, make sure that it’s not too aggressive of a heat. (You should be constantly stirring the bacon to make sure its getting evenly cooked on every piece).

Step 3– Once your bacon has started to get a golden crisp to it, add your Onions and Garlic. you don’t want your bacon to be fully crispy before adding Onions and Garlic. Continue gently stirring until your Onions and Garlic are cooked through and the bacon gets crispy.

Step 4– Add bourbon and Rosemary. DO NOT ADD THE OREGANO YET. You do not want your oregano to get burnt, so hold onto it for now. Once the Bourbon and Rosemary are added, it’s important to let the bourbon simmer down to a thicker liquid, you can even ignite the bourbon with a match to help burn off all of the alcohol, But I prefer a very distant taste of alcohol in my sauce, I think this is really up to you.

Step 5– Now you should have a pot with crispy bacon, cooked Onions and Garlic, and an even mixture of Olive Oil, Bacon grease and your reduced bourbon at the bottom of your sauce pan, with just Rosemary added. NOW you can add your Salt, pepper and Oregano. As soon as you add these final ingredients, turn down your heat to LOW, as low as it can go, gently stir your ingredients in the pot for a minute, but be careful not to let your liquid burn off.

Step 6– Do you smell that? That powerful, woodsy, sweet, savory smell… that’s what made me fall in love with this recipe. Now it’s time to remove the sauce ingredients from the burner… yes I know, it doesn’t look like a sauce yet, We will get to that in the next part.

Making the Pasta and Finishing the Sauce:

Let’s be honest here, making pasta is simple. Whatever pasta you bought will have instructions on the box, add whatever amount of water it tells you, If for whatever reason it doesn’t tell you to add salt, add some salt. The only thing different in this recipe is that you will take out about a cup of pasta water before its done cooking.

Step 7– After your sauce ingredients are removed from the heat, Start boiling your water for the pasta. Now, grab a small bowl, 3 eggs, 1/4 cup of milk and your Parmesan cheese.

Step 8– Take 2 of the eggs and only use the yolks, with the third egg, use the full one. Add your 1/4 cup of milk and whisk. Once your eggs and milk is whisked, add your grated parmesan and mix it in as well, your mixture should be thick but not chunky, if its still super thin, add some more parmesan. Once its to a desired consistency, put this bowl off to the side.

Step 9– At this point you should have boiling water, Add your pasta and let it cook for about 3/4 of the suggested time or until you notice the water is getting cloudy. This is when you will grab your cup of Pasta water.

Step 10– Add your Pasta water to your sauce ingredients and put the new mixture of pasta water and ingredients on low heat. At this point, you should also add your eggs, milk and parmesan to the sauce pan, make sure to stir it together so the eggs don’t cook. You want the sauce to be about as thick as heavy cream and a uniform texture throughout.

Step 11– Once your pasta is cooked, strain it, turn the burner to low and put the pot back on the burner you just turned turned to low, quickly add the pasta back into the pot and dump your sauce into the pot with your pasta, now you will want to stir your pasta and sauce together, if you find your sauce is too thin, add some more parmesan while stirring. Eventually you will see a delicious Bowtie Pasta with Cheesy Bourbon bacon sauce.

Step 12– Enjoy your amazing meal!!!!!