Kentucky Sorghum Beef Patties with Bourbon-Smoked Spices

It’s a man’s burger, it’s got testosterone written all over it, in and through it.  If you’re a woman like me, you want a man’s choice of hamburger to devour, not something wimpy, because it will always taste better.  Men know what they like.  It will have something smoked, something liquored up to help in the seasoning.  There will be pepper, hot sauce, and don’t forget the worcestershire sauce.  I owe my male taste buds to my father; I can be every bit a woman, and eat like a man.  I know how to feed a man’s gut, even adding fresh thyme and poppy seeds, giving it a feminine touch.  When it’s smoky, hot-edged, bourbon-laced, you know it’s going to be damn good.

Bourbon Barrel Foods from Louisville, Kentucky is where this rich sorghum and bourbon-smoked spices are from– sea salt, coarse pepper, paprika– all smoky and wonderful to smell; more wonderful to cook with and eat on good-quality organic beef.  When you taste this sorghum, you will find that all the other sorghum brands you’ve had your whole life did not compare to Bourbon Barrel Foods quality sorghum; the same with their spices.  Their sorghum is smooth tasting in its flavor, it’s not overpowering, not pungent like other sorghums.  It’s smooth and gentle but strong enough to hold its corner.  It’s got that evenness, the right balance.

Bourbon Barrel Foods cuts their sorghum with machetes when harvesting, like in the olden days, instead of using machinery.  One gallon of sorghum is produced from 10 gallons of sorghum juice, so it’s valuable to have when obtained.  They grow pesticide-free crops; you can still break open a cane to suck the sugar from it, as long ago.  They’ve hung on to traditional methods that they stand proudly behind which produce the very same sorghum quality through generations.  Kentucky holds the leading source for sorghum; not just any sorghum, but the best sorghum.  This is the only sorghum I purchase; it’s the only kind I will eat in meat, on popcorn, on and in biscuits; it just does it for me.

For cooking in beef patties, I do not go sparingly on the seasonings, here, or the sorghum– I use a lot of everything in this.  I do the same with the fresh thyme and the poppy seeds for this specific burger.  I want that process in my beef.  I want the sorghum and smoked spices to aid in caramelizing, to work successfully on the same team as men.  I want it to reach the point of being practically grilled black but not overly done in the center.  I choose not to finely-grind the coarse smoky sea salt, and I want to leave the pepper large in texture.  This is a man’s burger, remember?  But it’s good for the ladies, too.  It’s the ying-yang of both kind.  It’s a beautiful collision.

The only 2 things I will not put as much in– the worcestershire sauce and chili hot sauce even though I like to keep in mind that it could easily be too salty if I’m not careful with the smoked sea salt granules.  For the chili hot sauce, it’s Mexican– Valentina.  I’m a fan of it, an absolute die-hard for its quality.

I like to crispy-fry, sauté strips of jalapeno pepper and red onion in the caramelized fatty juices from the burgers, in the same skillet after the patties have been fried on high heat.  I cover this well-seasoned meat with these vegetables, then drench the entire thing with salsa verde with white toast on both sides of this fabulous beef burger.

drink it in a patty