Many of you may be wondering how in the name of all that is food-n-booze did Jay and Bendy end up back at Eleven-Eleven a mere month after declaring right here in blogsville that the place was over-hyped with mediocre food that tried too hard to be something it wasn't. That would be a totally fair bit of wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder on your part and all I can say in our defense is the promise of five bourbon tastings followed by a four-course dinner paired with bourbon cocktails went a long way towards softening our attitude. We also figured that after trying five bourbons, straight, we probably wouldn't notice if the food was good or not!
Now, all joking aside, this was another one of those events that had me doing the Nervous Nelly because our friends Anila and Artan were joining us. The last thing either Jay or I wanted was to have them attend this tasting and dinner only to be on the receiving end of bleargh-food like we had in February, so our fingers were crossed and our hopes were high that Eleven Eleven would pull out the stops and dazzle us all.
The bourbon tasting was scheduled to begin at 6:30 that evening and somehow Jay and I managed to get there with about fifteen minutes to spare. We staked out a good spot for the four of us and proceeded to breathe deep, the hovering fumes .... waahahahaha!!! Each place setting had five small glasses with half-an-ounce of bourbon already poured and shimmering seductively in the late evening light. A souvenir dinner menu was waiting there there for us as well as a fun Maker's Mark pen and a small bottle of sample booze: Red Stag Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey infused with Black Cherry.
Friends, why do booze makers insist on ruining good, strong alcohol with fruity infusions?
This stuff reeks of sweet - if you didn't know it was booze you would take a whiff and think it was Krusty Brand Non-Narcotic Cough Syrup. We're not sure that even the addition of more booze will salvage this stuff. Maybe that's why they gave everyone a free sample??
Place setting
The Bourbons waiting for us were all from the Jim Beam family ... from left to right in the picture below we tried the following: Booker's, Jim Beam Black, Knob Creek, Maker's Mark, and Ri.
Have a drink? Don't mind if I do!
Allow me to provide you with some Jim Beam Bourbon ed-u-ma-cay-shun, courtesy of the glossy tasting notes also included in the place setting.
Booker's - is considered an ultra-premium bourbon. It is bottled straight from the barrel, uncut and unfiltered so that you can experience the true taste of nineteenth century bourbon whiskey without going blind (haha). It's aged anywhere from 6-8 years and is bottled between 121-127 proof. For what it's worth none of us really cared for this one - it was too strong, even after adding a few tablespoons of water and then some ice. It didn't just taste like burning ... it felt like it burned a path all the way down my throat to my belly.
Jim Beam Black - is considered a premium bourbon and is the company's highest rated whiskey with a score of 93. It's aged 8 years and is bottled at 86-proof for a smooth, rich taste. We liked this one a lot - it really was smooth and it made a great cocktail later in the evening.
Knob Creek - another ultra-premium bourbon, this baby won a double gold medal at the 2005 San Francisco Wold Spirits Competition. It's aged 9 years in newly charred oak barrels to obtain sweet vanilla flavors and a maple sugar aroma. Knob Creek is bottled at 100 proof and it embodies the flavor of pre-prohibition whiskey ... bold and uncompromising, just like Eliot Ness! This was the universal favorite in our party of four and it did have a nice hint of vanilla but was not too sweet at all.
Maker's Mark - this is sooooper-premium! It is Jim Beam's original hand-made bourbon and is made with winter wheat instead of rye as the flavoring grain. I gotta be honest ... this one just doesn't do much for Jay or me, but we found that it made a great pork tenderloin marinade a few weeks ago!
Ri - This is actually spelled with a mark over the letter "i" to let you know that it's a long vowel sound. Pay attention because this will be really important when I tell you a story about what a dummy I can be sometimes. This is a new product for Jim Beam, a Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey which is both smooth and spicy with a hint of pepper and honey. It was alright, but Jay and I much preferred the High West Rye that we tried (and purchased) and the Harvest bourbon tasting in January.
The story of my denseness is as follows ... I had never heard of or seen this Jim Beam product before this event. Not that I'm an expert on Jim Beam boozes, because I'm not. Anyway, when I saw the event menu and tasting list in advance of the event I thought this was a formatting error because it looks like this: (ri) ... with a long mark over the letter "i" and the number 1 outside of the parenthesis. I really just thought it was a glitch in the email ... until I saw it at the place setting that night. Wahahahahahaa!!! Color me dumb because I missed the joke!
Artan & Anila
Bendy & Jay
We were seated close to the bar so we could see them lining up glasses before making the cocktails to be served with each dinner course - we only took one picture because we didn't want to bother the bartenders while they were performing their mixology magic.
Pretty cool, don't you think?
My only criticism of the tasting portion of the event is that there was no food on the table to help soak up the very potent five bourbons we tried in about thirty minutes. I could swear when I received the original email that appetizers were supposed to be included with the tasting portion of the evening but there was nothing on the table other than booze and water. Surely a basket of bread, which is provided to all patrons having "normal" meals at Eleven Eleven, wouldn't have been too much to ask for, would it?
As it was, when that first course showed up at the table, I was one hungry, buzzing, ol' crohn. The first course, by the way, was Jim Beam Black Smoked Salmon with Baby Greens and Pineapple Bourbon Vinaigrette served with a Jim Beam Black Sparkling Cider Cocktail.
Jim Beam Black Smoked Salmon
Surprise, surprise ... they served the salmon cold and it was really good - a nice combination of lightly smoked fish with a hint of sweetness. The bread stick was nice (would have been better during the tasting) but was very chewy. And the cocktail was amazing - crisp and refreshing it would be a great drink to serve on a hot summer evening.
The second course was Orecchiette Pasta & Italian Sausage with Maker's Mark Basil-Garlic Sauce served with a Maker's Mark Basil Julep.
Under-Sauced pasta in Stinktown? That's Unpossible!
Damn! I think this was my favorite course of the whole evening - it was full of flavors, none of which overpowered the others, and had a very light application of sauce; the pasta was cooked perfectly and the Italian sausage was nicely spiced with a hint of basil coming through now and then. The Maker's Mark Basil Julep was wonderful although a little more sweet than it probably needed to be.
Our third course was (Ri) Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Sauteed Green Beans and Fig Bourbon Sauce served with Fig Infused (Ri) Bourbon.
Pig and Fig ...
This was both good and not-so-good. The pork tenderloin was wonderful - tender and juicy and flavorful but I thought it was served with too much sauce. The balance between the fig and and the bourbon in the sauce, however, was very nice and I did like the flavor, I just didn't care for the amount that was on my plate. The drink, unfortunately, was not very good. I return to my original question about the need to ruin good booze with fruity infusions - in this case rather than resulting in a drink that was too sweet we ended up with a drink that was very, very bitter. You may find this hard to believe but I didn't finish this drink ... didn't even come close.
Our dessert course was Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie with Knob Creek Ice Cream served with a Knob Creek Tawny Port Cordial.
YUMMY!
Having never tried sweet potato pie I was really looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. It was like a very light, creamy, pumpkin pie and I really enjoyed it; the Knob Creek ice cream was also very tasty and paired really well with the pie. The real tragedy of this course was the cocktail - I was very intrigued by the idea of a port cocktail, but really ... I should have known better. YOU DON'T MESS WITH TAWNY PORT - PERFECTION CANNOT BE IMPROVED UPON!!!
Ahem.
Tawny port is already sweet, usually with notes of caramel and coffee and sometimes fruit. Adding Knob Creek, which was the sweetest of the bourbons we tried, to an already sweet, fortified wine, was not really a very smart idea. They should have served the Knob Creek straight, in my humble opinion, or perhaps a Knob Creek Coffee would have been a nice way to finish the evening, but the drink we got was just not good. And it looked to be a universal opinion because no one sitting at our table of ten finished it and I heard another guest say the same thing I did, "this just isn't good."
Having voiced my displeasure with the tawny port cocktail, I will now tell you that overall we were pleased with the evening. We all thought the food was quite good, which certainly made Jay and me feel better about the restaurant and our decision to come back with friends. The bourbon tasting was interesting and informative and gave us a chance to sample four new bourbons that we'd never tried before, aside from Maker's Mark. We still preferred the event we attended at Harvest because that featured bourbons from different distilleries rather than focusing on booze from one producer, but this was a good evening and we're glad we booked it. And I have to be fair and go on record as stating that this time the food at Eleven Eleven Mississippi really did live up to the hype - it was simple yet creative, and very tasty. We really enjoyed the evening, the meal, and of course, the company!
Now if they could just offer an event like this on a Friday or Saturday night so that we don't have to get up and go to work the next day ...
2 comments:
It looked good, it sounded good. Too bad it all didn't taste good, drinks included. Glad the overall food was good, though. And they needed food with the booze up front. Bad event planners!
Yummy! All that alcohol made me dizzy just reading about it!
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