Texas Whiskey Glazed Pecans

(Not in the mood for my drivel? I don’t blame you. Scroll down for the recipe.)

I do not like washing my jeans. I haven’t yet tried the cleaning by freezing method (probably because among the various butchery and charcuterie projects, I have no spare freezer real estate), but I do try to squeeze as many wears as possible out of my denim before chucking them in the wash.

Jeans (and boots) in Paris.

I feel only the tiniest bit of shame that I find great pleasure in the supremely unattractive bagginess that my two three favorite pair of dungarees garner on second or third wearing—so much so that I can pull them over my hips without unzipping or unbuttoning: my own version of elastic-waist pants (though not great, I guess, if someone decides to pants me). They’re roomy, comfy, and accepting. But, those same jeans, just out of the dryer? Make me feel like I’ve got calves the size of mature oak trees, a butt the size of an SUV, and render me unable to properly move my knee and hip joints. They’re inflexible, confining, and judgy.

Can I fit in them? Yes. Do I feel like they fit? Certainly not.

I struggle with the feeling of fitting in versus fitting every time I go to Texas. I spent many of my formative years in that crazy place and I could not wait to get out. With age and time, I realize that a good seventy percent of what I hated about Texas came with me to New England (wherever you go, there you are, right?), but there’s a good thirty percent of stuff that still bugs the crap out of me about that state. An endemic small-mindedness still gets my goat —and I’m not talking about political ideologies; I’ve known and loved conservatives, liberals, libertarians, fascists, Marxists, Trotsky-ites, Austrian economists, tree huggers. (My chief concerns are (A) Are you kind? And (B) Are you funny? And I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of (A) for a lot of (B).) It’s primarily the prevailing concept that “Texas is the greatest! There’s no place better than Texas!” (Truthfully, this also bugs me about Manhattanites—and I love Manhattan. I just want to say, “Really? And you know this because you’ve been everyplace else?”)

Do I sound bitter?

On the other hand, I discovered after I left just how astounding my Texas family is. Three brothers, three sisters-in-law, eight nieces and nephews, five nieces-and-nephews-in-laws, nine (soon to be ten!) great nieces and nephews: all with fantastic tastes in music and astonishingly generous with their love.

(My parents, bless their hearts, taught me that it was essential to be polite to friends and strangers but that is was OK to treat family like shit. My siblings (who had all pretty much grown and moved out by the time I came along) and their truly open-hearted spouses taught me how to be kind to the people I love. NB: my poor husband is still waiting for me to master this lesson.)

I can fit in in Texas. I can walk the walk: I love my vintage cowboy boots and beef cooked for hours over a low smoke and I love George Jones. I can talk the talk: my y’all’s and all y’all‘s and fixin‘s can hold their own in a room of born and bred Lone Star tallboy drinkers. But I don’t fit in Texas. Despite the state’s behemoth and dizzyingly flat land mass, I suffocate. Okay, occasionally, in the early spring when the bluebonnets have bloomed, driving alone west on I-20, maybe playing some Explosions in the Sky, I feel a little freedom, but for the most part, Texas is the just-out-of-the-dryer jeans, snidely pointing out with raised eyebrow everything that is wrong with me. But unlike my favorite 501s, these jeans never give. They never relax.

***

On my most recent visit, I took an afternoon field trip to the Firestone & Robertson Distillery, just twenty minutes from my dad’s house in Fort Worth. F&R operates out of an old office in an in medias-gentrification part of town. Exposed brick and reclaimed wood form the backdrop for massive copper stills. One thousand barrels of aging hooch limn the distillery floor and the aroma of sour yeast spills out the door to greet visitors.

Just one barrel of 1,000.

I first tasted their TX Blended Whiskey about two years ago. Is it fantastic? No. Drinkable? Totally. A little sweet, with big coconut overtones provided by the new American oak barrels used in the aging process. Retail product thus far has been limited to the blended stuff, but the first batch of bourbon is coming to an acceptable age (three years in new oak barrels, by law) and will likely make its way to liquor store shelves in the next eighteen months.

The proprietors’ commitment to producing a place-based spirit compelled them to culture their own yeast for the fermentation process. Yeast grows on and in everything, but most distilleries in the US (even the fancy ones) purchase commercial yeast to turn their grain sugars into alcohol. It’s easy to understand why: commercial yeasts are reliable and have a consistent flavor profile (yeast accounts for up to 25% of a whiskey’s flavor). But that consistency has a downside: it gives a distiller less bandwidth with which to create his own taste.

Bourbon, aging. Tagged by TCU fans.

To their credit, the F&R boys worked with some yeast experts and the chemists at Texas Christian University to sample over 150 local bits of stuff (leaves, grasses, rocks, flowers, etc.) to find the one yeast strain that would give them the flavor they sought. The serendipitous winner hails from pecan shells (the pecan is the Texas state tree) gathered fifty miles south in Glen Rose (also the home of some impressive dinosaur fossils).

The mash, fermenting corn, rye, and barley.

The corn and rye in the mash both come from the Texas Panhandle (barley doesn’t grow well in Texas, so it is sourced from the Midwest), and bottle caps use recycled cowboy boot leather from a storied bootmaker in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

I enjoyed my time at the distillery, especially because I was joined by several mature, gentlemanly cowboys in town for the annual stock show and rodeo, who happened to be big whiskey fans.

Cowboys and a for-show-only still at Firestone & Robertson.

*****

Finally, to deliver on the promise of the title of this post, I decided to go full Texas and glaze some pecans with the TX. I added dried peaches (peaches: also a big deal in Texas) for a bit of chew, cayenne for kick, and bitters for…bitterness. Orange zest brings to mind the citrus-rich Texas valley. I think these would be great as a nibble with a peachy spin on an Old Fashioned (maybe this one).

Simple ingredients, big flavor.

Texas Whiskey Glazed Pecans (2 cups)

• 1/4 cup TX Texas Blended Whiskey (or bourbon)
• 1/4 cup dried peaches, diced
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/ 4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (Like it spicier? Add more. Like it waaaay spicier? Try habanero or ghost chili.)
• 2 cups raw pecan halves
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2-3 dashes citrus bitters
• 1 tablespoon orange zest

1. Combine the peaches and whiskey in a small bowl; set aside. In other bowl, mix the sugar, salt, and both peppers; set aside.
2. Toast the pecans in a large skillet over medium heat for 4-5 minutes or until they get toasty. Add the butter and swirl it around until the pecans are delightfully buttery.
3. Add the sugar and spices to the pecans and give it all a good stir. Off the heat, add the whiskey and peaches—stay away from the flame while you do this if you want to keep your eyebrows.
4. Back on the heat, continue to stir until the whiskey thickens into a glaze, maybe another minute or so. Take the pan off the heat and add the bitters.
5. Pour the pecans onto a Silpat or a parchment-lined pan. Separate those buggers as much as you can; they’re going to want to clump together.
6. When they’re cool, sprinkle with the zest.

Ready for snacking!

Maybe Texas has changed a little since I left. Maybe I have. Perhaps we can hope for a detente sometime soon. In the meantime, I’ll just listen to George Jones.