Louisville Lady
The great thing about being an adult is you get to keep all the things you loved about childhood and replace the rest of the crap with more adult pleasures. When you were a kid you loved Ice Cream Floats. I know you did, I can see that look on your face. Well now you’re an adult and you love bourbon too. Good ole Kentucky bourbon in fact. Why can’t you enjoy them together?
I was recently in Ohio as the guest of Experience Columbus and I was introduced to one heck of an ice cream parlor. The kind of ice cream parlor that doesn’t flinch from putting whiskey in ice cream. Which is one reason why Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has gained such a loyal following wherever they open up shop. Jeni is currently featuring a whiskey-soaked-pecan-creamery made in conjunction with a local Columbus distillery known as Middle West Spirits. They’re known for Oyo Vodka, which is a locally sourced spirit that has many of the distinctive winter-wheat flavors and aromas that you never really associated with the “big boys” of ethanol. Most recently they have taken this small-batch, single-cask production philosophy to produce a spiritus frumenti, made solely from soft red Ohio winter wheat called Oyo Whiskey.
The whiskey is something special all on its own, but in Jeni’s hands it’s the key ingredient in an unholy mash-up of white-trash disaster and haute-cuisine. If you’re anywhere near a Jeni’s I suggest you sample a scoop.
But I live in California. We don’t have Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. So I knew I just had to get my hands on the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams cookbook. It’s where Jeni shares many of her creative ice cream recipes. One of these recipes really jumped out at me. She calls it Louisville Lady, but it’s basically a bourbon float with mint. How audacious, I thought. It immediately reminded me of a sweet, creamy, frothy version of a Mint Julep. In other words it perfectly paired the best of childhood with the very best of adulthood. I just had to try it once I got home.
The results were divine. I’m sure Jeni could never get away with serving this in the ice cream parlor, so you just have to try it for yourself at home. Take a couple of scoops of peppermint ice cream. Jeni recommends a variety she calls Backyard Mint Ice Cream. It’s a peppermint ice cream that’s super minty ,but much more sophisticated the the day-glo green stuff you get at the supermarket. You can get Jeni’s recipe for Backyard Mint Ice Cream at Food & Wine Magazine.
After that the recipe follows quite literally in the very best tradition of an ice cream float. Only it has bourbon. Don’t forget the bourbon. GREG
