Wisconsin Foodie

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This week on Wisconsin Foodie

If you brought a plate, they're on my left. If you need to borrow a plate, they're on my right.

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This week on Wisconsin Foodie

We really are a food circus. We joke that that's what we are. We roll into a town, and we have a dinner the next night. Chef Daniel Fox, my friend. The menu you have tonight, it's just on point. But a bourbon dinner is really kind of a distinctive thing.

Dan

We have pork chops. We call them Tomahawk Chops. They have the whole bone on there.

Kyle

You roast the fish on? On barrels that the whiskey was aged in. Really had no idea that we had a bourbon farm 20 minutes outside of Madison. I thought bourbon was just a pure Kentucky thing. Well, bourbon goes better with delicious food and locally-produced product like you and your pork farms and all of the other activities that you do. Oh sure, thank you, yeah. It starts the farm so that's the reason why we're here. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms. Working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. Employee-owned New Glarus Growing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

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chickens clucking

beverage bubbling

crunching

sizzling

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the following underwriters for their support

The philosophy of Heritage Tavern is really approachable fine dining, almost like the tavern where everyone knows your name kind of approach. We really wanted to take more global cuisine and focus on local Wisconsin ingredients. You know, $50 steak all the way down to an $11 ham sandwich. But the ham, of course, we raise the pigs and cure ourselves. Heritage pigs started very much as a hobby, and then it really just kind of took off. So now we have the Fox Heritage Farms line. Willow Creek line, our catering side, already started with an off-site kitchen that we have in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Now it's three-and-a-half going on four years, like five days ago, which is pretty stellar. We're heading out to J. Henry & Sons Bourbon. It's a local farm 20 minutes outside of Madison. We're gonna get a tour of the property and kind of discuss how the "Outstanding in the Field" dinner's gonna go.

car crunches gravel

the following underwriters for their support

Liz, how are you? - I'm great. Thanks for coming. - Good to see you. Super excited about a tour. Would you like to do the tour before we do a little taste? Yeah, please, let's go. - Alright, let's go. We've been farming here all of Joe's life. This is our seed corn operation. Everything on this side of the building or the land is dedicated to seed corn production, and then the building where we're going to see the barrels and where the magic happens, that's related to bourbon production. Go ahead. Oh, man, that smells amazing. That's the barrels breathing. - Wow. As long as bourbon is in the barrels, it's a living, breathing thing, and moving in and out of the barrels. We consider Wisconsin and our terre noire a really great part of how our bourbon ends up being produced because in Wisconsin, this is an unheated, non-electrified warehouse, so it's at the mercy of Wisconsin weather. And what happens when that happens is the barrels expand and contract, and expand and contract, and pull the bourbon into the wood and squeeze it out of the wood. Oh, sure. Really a great thing for the flavors. So this is a traditional dairy barn that has been repurposed for housing and aging and maturing bourbon. How many barrels do you have in here? We started in 2009, putting our first batch down, and we put about 100 barrels a year down. Now, we have over 800 because we've increased it and expanded it to a couple of hundred barrels a year. We do all large traditional barrels, traditional aging. These are 53 gallon, which is the large barrels, and then they're racked so that's there good air circulation, so that they're all breathing while they're in here. Oh, sure, it's alive in there. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. Excellent. So here are our sons. - Hey, guys. Hi. - Our son, Joe. Joe, Dan, pleasure to meet you. Jack,

really nice to meet you. - Liz

My son, Jack. So do you want to give him a sample, Jack?

Dan

Family business, I love it. I'm really excited that you get to try our new Bellefontaine Reserve. Bellefontaine Reserve is finished in cognac barrels, which are a larger barrel. What else do you want to tell us about them, Jack? We get that traditional bourbon flavor from aging it in that oak for five-and-a-half years. Then when we bring it over to the larger cognac barrels, it picks up a lot of that fruity, sweeter flavors that are really popular, especially here in Wisconsin where, you know, I'm sure you know everyone likes brandy or... Yeah, brandy's king in Wisconsin.

laughing

Dan

Oh, that's amazing. That's really good.

Liz

Full-strength! - Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, thank you so much. It's really an honor to be here. The honor is ours, thank you. It's a privilege. - Thank you for coming. Honestly, I'm super excited to taste some more bourbons. Can we try some more? Let's go to the tasting room and try a few more. - Perfect. Thank you, guys. - Yeah, thank you.

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Liz

So, Dan, this is our tasting room, and this is Joe. Hi, Joe. - Hi, Dan. How are you? - Good to see you again. Pleasure. - Absolutely. Welcome to the tasting room. This is the 'Joe' behind J. Henry. Our sons are Joe and Jack, and this is Joe, the husband. So let's do a tasting.

glasses clink on the bar

Liz

The first one I'm gonna pour for you is our small batch 92-proof bourbon. The other thing we always offer people, and a lot of folks don't realize that this is equally as important is we try to add a drop of water, and the drop of water opens the nose. What's the best way to taste this? Bourbon should be treated like a good red wine. They should be let to breathe. They should be sipped and savored. You want to bring the glass up to your nose. See if you can smell things from the top and the bottom edge. So after you do that, take your little sip. Move it around through your mouth. Some people chew.

smacks lips

Liz

That's really just to get more oxygen into your mouth and make sure that you're really tasting the bourbon. That's pretty fantastic. - Thank you. I'd be proud of that. That's really interesting. I've never approached bourbon in the same way as red wine. So, Joe, I really had no idea that we had a bourbon farm 20 minutes outside of Madison. - Right. I thought bourbon was just a pure Kentucky thing. A lot of people think that bourbon has to be made in Kentucky, but actually, the law is that it needs to be made in the United States. Part of the story is that bourbon has to be made, by law again, of 51% corn. Of course, that peaked my interest, because obviously we're in the corn business, and we decided that that might be kind of a neat diversification. My father bought this place, the farm, in 1946, and then this was our family home. About two-and-a-half years ago, we decided to make this into a tasting room for our bourbon business, and I can guarantee you it didn't look like this when I was a kid. So I was probably conceived in the bedroom right above us actually. Well, that's a great story. - Yeah.

laughs

Liz

So this is our Patton Road Reserve. It's five years aged. It's named after the road we're on, and this is the purest expression of our bourbon. So all we do with this product is select a barrel that we think is a really great example of what bourbon should taste like. And then we literally just take the product out of the barrel and bottle it. We filter it so that there are no chunks of barrel in there, and anything else, but that's it. This one is my personal favorite, because this is true sipping bourbon.

Dan

God, that is spectacular. Thank you. Got that little cherry notes on, slightly, like almond, or pits of stone fruits.

Liz

Yup. Kind of comes out a little bit. I think I'm in the wrong line of work here.

Liz laughs

Liz

Well bourbon goes better with delicious food, and we really feel honored and fortunate to work with someone who is really focused on creating a beautiful crafted locally- produced product like you and your pork farms and all of the other activities that you do. Oh, sure, thank you, yeah. It starts at the farm so that's the reason why we're here. I've got to say I'm really looking forward to this dinner. It's just an amazing setting out here. Amazing bourbon. For Outstanding in the Field, it's gonna be just perfect. - Thank you, Dan. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. It's gonna be exciting. And knowing your food and your cooking, it's gonna be wonderful. We're honored. Thanks. Cheers.

To a great dinner. - Dan

To a great dinner.

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To a great dinner. - Dan

My name's Colin Dorwart, and I'm with Outstanding in the Field. I manage our public tour. We do 86 dinners. We hit 40 states. We say we typically feed about 12,000 diners during our season. You know, we really are a food circus, a culinary circus. That's what we are. We roll into a town, and we have a dinner the next night. Sure, we're a national organization, but what we do is come into a place, and we really strive

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To a great dinner. - Dan

to support the local economy.

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To a great dinner. - Dan

And today, we're in Dane, Wisconsin. Dan wanted to work with J. Henry today, and he uses their bourbon quite often in the restaurant and thought it would be a great site. It is. It's beautiful. We're excited to be here. We have a 160 people coming tonight, and it should be awesome.

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To a great dinner. - Dan

I just want to say thank you all for coming, and I think we're in for a real treat with Dan Fox's dinner, and these guys are doing a wonderful job.

people clap and cheer

To a great dinner. - Dan

It's just an incredible honor for us to be hosting this event.

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To a great dinner. - Dan

And as our logo says, reward yourself. Reward yourselves with this beautiful meal, this beautiful day, and some delicious bourbon. Thank you, thank you.

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To a great dinner. - Dan

In the lineage of American cooking, excellence used to be marked by some European technique, an understanding of what was delicious, and a crisp white chef's coat. So much could be accomplished with those and terrific plating. But American cooking consciousness has changed. Now, some of our best chefs are mixing a wise understanding of animal husbandry and soil husbandry of the true American palate. Chef Dan Fox is one of those chefs. He is paired today with a third-generation family farm in Wisconsin, J. Henry, who have broadened out their offerings of rye and wheat and corn into the most distinctive and American of spirits, bourbon. It's the American plate writ large in the middle of a field but that could only be served in Wisconsin. Chef Daniel Fox, my friend. Kyle, how's it going? - How are you? Good, it's good to see you. I prefer that you shake my elbow than-- I mean, that's a sharp knife.

both laugh

To a great dinner. - Dan

So this is a pretty good partnership. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. We met Liz and Joe just about a year ago now. Just fell in love with it immediately. It was kind of a match made right away. The menu that you have tonight is just... I'm overexposed, right? It is so sublime and just on point, but a bourdon dinner is really kind of a distinctive thing. So what are you doing tonight that you don't do in the restaurant that is unique or you were really stoked about that you don't normally do but you put on the menu tonight? Actually, all of these dishes are brand new. Wow! That's gutsy. Yeah,

laughs

To a great dinner. - Dan

I mean, we've done similar ideas. I've obviously done heirloom tomato salad. We've done large pork platters. But the combinations, they are all very unique to this event. So you're sort of pork-centric, but I scanned the menu, and you've got a fish dish on there, which is not, you can't argue it came from these fields. Yeah, you know, I've got to have some variety in there. But I can argue that the fish very much helps share the stories, as far as the technique we're using, roasting the fish, - Yeah. We took the barrels that the whiskey was aged in, deconstructed them, put a little bit of oil on the white fish.

Kyle

And then you're gonna roast the fish on...

Dan

On the barrel plank. Cedar-plank roasted, barrel-plank roasted. That's pescatarian gnarly. I like that a lot, yeah. And then, of course, add a little bacon in there. Yeah, well, okay!

both laugh

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Dan

How you doing? - Good, good! Nice to see you! Hello, beauty!

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Dan

So tonight, we are making a really fun cocktail for everyone tonight, starting off with J. Henry Bourbon. A little fresh-squeezed lemon juice, house-made Limoncello with vanilla, and then we're topping that with Wollersheim Ros that I've infused with farmers market raspberries. And it's gonna be really light and refreshing for today. So I've brought the Wollersheim folks to drink the Wollersheim Ros. How are you, it's lovely to see you again.

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Dan

Would you like to try the cocktail? Sure. - Enjoy. Thank you. - Yeah, my pleasure. Cheers, Philippe, Julie. A little Wollersheim Ros and other good things. Yeah, on top of some bourbon. I've never been, yeah, a straw guy. Just for mixing. There's a cocktail in my flower. Oh, that's terrific. - Wow. That will set you right on a summer day.

Philippe

So good. Oh, thank you.

people chatter

Philippe

So this is? That's the grilled beef tenderloin with a chimichurri sauce.

Kyle

And?

And a... - Kyle

A tiny little potato.

It's got a little baby carrot. - Kyle

A shrimpy little carrot.

Server

Cooked in a little bit of ash. Oh, from the barrels. From the barrels, and we also did it with the husks as well. Mm-hmm. Corn husks from a farm, barrel ash from the charred and toasted bourbon barrels. Yes, yup. On this delicious hors d'oeuvre. I feel like I've done so much already.

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Server

I'm going to go poke somebody. - Yeah.

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Server

If you brought a plate, they're on my left. If you need to borrow a plate, they're on my right. We'll see you at the table!

people chatter, plates clatter

Server

So we've all just sat down. I've got the Henry family next to and across from me. There seems to be just under 190 of us about to have an outstanding dinner.

J. Henry

I gotta try that barrel ash. The barrel ash is the last thing that comes out of the barrel.

Kyle

Mm-hmm. And it's soaked up ash with, got all kinds of bourbon, yeah. Some of the ash that we made for roasting the potatoes and carrots, we ground down with bread crumbs and Kosher salt or sea salts. And we're sticking the little baby vegetables out of the ash. You'll have snap peas, yellow-waxed beans, radishes. We actually grabbed some of the baby corn off the stalks. That's gonna be raw. I thought it was super cool. So the idea is people would just kind of pick the veg right up out of the soil, and they'll dip it into a cheese fondue. This fondue is something that I'm most excited about because we've got veggies from the Dane County Farmer's Market, but this is a whiskey-spiked Crme de la Coulee fondue because in Wisconsin a little whiskey in your fondue never hurts.

laughter

Kyle

Eat your vegetables!

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Kyle

Oh, that's so great! Who knew that eating, literally, charred remains of bourbon barrel would be this tasty?

J. Henry

I think we have another product we can sell.

Kyle

Absolutely!

J. Henry

Barrel ash.

Server

This is the char-braised white fish with shishito peppers, bacon.

Roasted it on the barrel. - Kyle

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a line.

Man

You want to just grab that one?

Kyle

On the stave... You can see where the bourbon soaked into the oak. And right there, that's the happy juice of bourbon being made, soaking into wood.

Man

Right.

group laughs

Man

This is great. The white fish soaks up the flavors so much. That is unlike any other plank- roasted fish I've ever had. 80-year-old vine, medium body, spicy, bright, red fruit. So, I've got to say, this paired with the Wollersheim Riesling, is an amazing Wisconsin triumvirate. You've got your bourbon staves. We've got Great Lakes white fish. We've got a little bit of pork that Dan Fox raises for his restaurant. And then, we've got this great Riesling. This is legit. That's a great pairing, yeah. This is our grits with the red seed corn. It's a very pronounced, very strong corn flavor. What's amazing about it is the texture. It just really gives a nice bite. We're taking bandaged cave-aged cheddar from Bleu Mont Dairy and folding that in. Joe, start laying out all the plates for the pork, please. Awesome. The Heritage pork. We have pork chops, or we call them Tomahawk chops. They have the whole bone on there. And a garlic sausage and a knockwurst. Then we have braised pork shoulder that will be center of the plates. We're very much featuring Willow Creek today.

Kyle

Here we go! Did you-- Is this the whole farm, basically, on this plate?

Server

Yes.

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Kyle

All of Willow Creek is-- Yeah. Would you hand me a plate? What can I get for you, Mr. Henry?

J. Henry

A little bit of everything. A little bit of everything. We're gonna get you a head cheese, cheese ball, a little bacon. Oh wait, oh, there's grits! There's grits underneath! Oh yeah, you got to go deep! Underneath all of this is the trotter. It's basically the foot of the pig that they've de-boned and then stuffed, and I'm going big on these silver dollars. Oh, that's great.

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J. Henry

So, Joe, tell me what you think. Do you always eat like this on your farm? Well, I wish I did, but this is really wonderful. We used to graze hogs on our farm, but not anything like this. It's kind of a pretty sweet moment. We're going to plate up desserts. We have these really beautiful Wisconsin stone fruit galettes with some pretty awesome whiskey en glace that we're going to serve in a moment. Thank you so much, Thank you so much for coming. Like I said, we couldn't have done it without you. Dan Fox will be speaking soon, and, obviously, he's the star of the show.

applause

J. Henry

First off, I want to thank the Henrys. Thank you so very, very much.

crowd cheers and claps

J. Henry

Please raise your glass to opening up your home and your barn to us today and making this amazing, amazing bourbon for us to enjoy. And really, I have nothing more to say than just thank you so very much for supporting what we do, supporting local food, supporting the restaurants that myself and all of my peers work so very hard to continue to bring to you every day. So, please, thank you again.

cheers and applause

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Liz laughs

J. Henry

Oh, he's-- Okay, oh, here's Joe. Hi Joe. - Joe, this is--

laughs

Cameraman

Blooper real! Well, this is what's known as a classic fake-out where we think the guests are coming and then they decide to go check out one other thing on the tour and then we wait another five minutes.

laughs

Cameraman

You went to a lot of trouble to get a bunch of people you don't know sipping on a small glass. I mean really.

laughs

Liz

Well, Chef Fox did most of the work.

Kyle laughs

Liz

Yeah, he kind of opened a pretty broad window for happiness here. This is a great dinner. - Thank you. I feel as if we're at your table, meaning the Henry family table.

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Liz

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The Central Wisconsin Craft Collective. Something Special from Wisconsin Rushing Waters Fisheries. FAB Wisconsin. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events, dinners, and tours, please go to wisconsinfoodie dot com. There you can sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know about our events and offerings. Also, get connected with us through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.