Sweet-T-Sway: Whisk(e)y Wednesday presented by Lock & Key

Sweet-T-Sway at Lock & Key

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

Somehow, despite the fact that I've worked with Bite and Booze for 6 months now, I've managed to miss out on team trips to one of Jay's favorite watering holes, Lock & Key. When Blair asked if I wanted to grab a whiskey cocktail after work last week, I agreed, even though whiskey cocktails are generally not my thing.

Blair pointed me to a section of the menu called "Whiskey Doubters," and from there I landed on the Sweet-T-Sway.

Much to my delight, I couldn't even taste the Sam Houston whiskey in this concoction (sorry, whiskey lovers).

But the sweet tea combined with pomegranate liqueur and muddled mint served over crushed ice was perfectly refreshing and brought to mind a mint julep.

Maybe if I try each cocktail on the Whiskey Doubters menu I'll eventually become a Whiskey Believer.

If Lock & Key keeps slinging creative, hand-crafted whiskey cocktails like the Sweet-T-Sway, I'll be converted in no time.

For all you Whiskey Doubters out there, I highly recommend trying the Sweet-T-Sway.

Dare to Pair: Here is a list of items that pair reasonably well with Jay D's Blanc Du Bois

– Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

Jay D's Blanc Du Bois shot by Nicole Colvin at the Olive or Twist wine launch on May 20, 2015. 

Jay D's Blanc Du Bois won't be on shelves for much longer. We only corked 1,000 bottles, and most of those have been snatched up already. But if you can get your hands on one, or if you're one of the lucky few with a bottle sitting in the fridge, feel free to use this very official Jay D's Blanc Du Bois Pairing Guide to take your sipping to the next level.

Popcorn 

I discovered this pairing by accident. As it turns out, the buttery, salty flavors of microwave popcorn go swimmingly with the tart, refreshing flavors in the Blanc Du Bois. Jay recommends seasoning the popcorn with his FNS buddy Arnold Myint's Herbs de Provence or with some Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Barbecue chicken pizza made with Jay D's Louisiana Barbecue sauce. 

It almost goes without saying that Jay D's Blanc Du Bois was made to pair perfectly with outdoor cooking. But if outdoor cooking isn't your thing, try Jay D's with barbecue chicken pizza. All the flavors of the outdoors combined with the honeysuckle and pear flavors in the wine work together magically. Check out our recipe for barbecue chicken pizza using Jay D's Louisiana Barbecue Sauce here!

Pistachios 

I love contrasting the crisp flavors of a white wine with a handful of salty nuts. Something about it just works without being too filling. Try pairing salted pistachios with a glass of Jay D's Blanc Du Bois, or if you're feeling crazy, maybe try pairing the wine with some pistachio gelato. Who's going to stop you?

Chicken Salad

Calvin's Bocage Market's chicken salad is legendary. Photo from calvinsbocage.com. 

There's no greater love story than that of white wine and chicken. The two are a match made in heaven. Also made in heaven? Calvin's chicken salad. Recently I nearly pitched a fit when I went to grab a container of the stuff for a beach trip and another shopper stood directly in the way of the chicken salad. Grab your favorite crackers, a couple of pounds of Baton Rouge's favorite chicken salad and a glass of Jay D's Blanc Du Bois and call it a night.

(Bite and Booze bonus: Check out this vintage video of Calvin himself appearing on NBC nightly news in 1996!)

Hot Dogs

Jay D's Blanc Du Bois tastes like summer. You know what else tastes like summer? That's right. HOT DOGS. I can't even express my excitement at the idea of an outdoor hotdog cookout and a glass (or three) of Blanc Du Bois. A little mustard, a little ketchup, and a dash of relish on a pork or sausage hot dog, surrounded by a fresh, toasted bun washed down with a cold glass of Jay D's? Sign me up.

Fro Yo

If you're feeling especially indulgent, this is the pairing for you. Counter Culture's Humphrey, a frozen yogurt treat with strawberries, bananas, grapes, and granola drizzled with honey, works well with the Blanc Du Bois. The fruit flavors in the wine compliment the fruits in the yogurt, and the tartness in the wine is balanced by the tartness in the yogurt. 

Hummus

Ruth's is my favorite locally made hummus.

Ruth's Hummus tastes fresh and lemony, and it's perfect for dipping just about anything. It's locally-made and versatile, just like the blanc du bois. Grab some vegetables, your favorite pita, and a glass of Jay D's Blanc Du Bois and snack outside by the pool on a hot day and thank me later.

The Time Jay Shipped Me Off to Oklahoma for a Week: Part II

by Blair "B-Rex" Loup

Much like Baton Rouge, Stillwater, Oklahoma, is a college town. Oklahoma City aside, Stillwater is considered to be a bustling oasis amid the rolling plains. Home to the world-famous Eskimo Joe's, Stillwater has recently opened the doors on its first craft brewery and is 23 years deep in a red-dirt tradition: the Calf Fry.

Eskimo Joe's is celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, and, like Rotolo’s, they've become famous for their plastic cups and for being the only company in America that prints more t-shirts than Hard Rock Café.

Legitimately, most of the other casual restaurants in the area have adopted the same cups printed in a similar style. It's so ubiquitous that Eskimo Joe's cups are an actual unit of measurement in Stillwater.

Most of the shirts that are printed in Stillwater came from the warehouse Eskimo Joe's owns. If something were to happen to their cups or shirt printing operation, or the well of cheese fries dried up, I'm not entirely sure life would go on in Stillwater.

Needless to say, they’ve come a long way from being a hole-in-the-wall bar. Now that you have a grasp on how important this place is to Stillwater, let’s talk about the cheese fries.

These cheese fries are sacred to anyone in Stillwater and any student who has attended OSU, but in my mind I kept thinking, “Okay, cheese is good and so are fries. Together they’re delicious, but can these cheese fries be that groundbreaking?” The answer to that question is no, they can't.

But what is so incredible about these cheese fries is the sweet pepper bacon they're topped with. You take ordinary bacon, make it a little sweet, and add a kick of black pepper. Suddenly, these scrumptious cheese fries transform into groundbreaking cheese fries. They absolutely live up to the hype, and if you happen to be in the area, I suggest you pop in, grab some cheese fries, grab a shirt, and don’t forget to take your cup on the way out.

The legendary Sweet Pepper Bacon Cheese Fries at Eskimo Joe's

Drinking Iron Monk's Milk Stout
with Co-Founder Dave Monk

Iron Monk Brewing Company shows a lot of promise. Co-Founder Dave Monk has his PhD. in biology, which is a great start to making solid brews. While we were touring the brewery, Dave and I were talking about some of the great beers in Louisiana and tasting their creamy milk stout and bold double IPA. I look forward to seeing more from them in the future and you can find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@IronMonkBeer) to see what they’re up to.

As an adventurous eater, I jumped at the chance to eat fried bull testicles in Oklahoma; it’s the part of this trip I looked forward to for months.

The Stillwater Calf Fry is a colossal festival in the middle of nowhere where young men in their flashiest cowboy hats and young women in their shortest cutoffs go to listen to country music and eat bull testicles.

If you can’t see the magic in this, stop reading now.

I will say that if you’re looking for tasty testes, you may want to eat them elsewhere. The calf fries at the Calf Fry are frozen, pre-breaded, and then dropped into a deep fryer. They taste like fried—nothing more, nothing less. In any case, the event is a sight to behold.

Calf Fries at the Calf Fry in Stillwater, Oklahoma

In the end, I'm okay with Jay shipping me off to Oklahoma any day. The people are passionate and forward-thinking in a way that's making room for some very cool stuff.

Introducing "Free Booze Friday": Whisk(e)y Wednesday presented by Lock & Key

Pappy, Stephen, and Lorraine pose with host Jay Ducote on the set of
Free Booze Friday

by Sydney "Brown Nose" Blanchard

At the Bite and Booze headquarters, we receive a lot of free alcohol (including whiskey) in the mail. Brewers, distillers, and winemakers (well, their PR people, mostly) constantly send us a barrage of booze. So much, in fact, that we now have a legitimate bar in our office.

The question of what to do with all this booze kept coming up, so Jay and Tommy (from tommysTV) came up with an answer: a web series where Jay would act as host and bartender, serving free booze to puppets with big personalities crafted by Baton Rouge puppeteer Clay Achee. 

And thus, Free Booze Friday was born.

You can find a safe trailer here.

But for a little Whisk(e)y Wednesday fun, here's a somewhat NSFW teaser trailer. You may notice that some of this series was filmed at the Lock & Key Whiskey Bar. Beausoleil Restaurant and Bar served as our other backdrop. 

You may be asking yourself, "Why?"

But our answer to that is, "Why not?"

Why the heck not?

Geek Nation will be hosting each bi-weekly episode (there are 12 this season), so check out their website to stay up to date.

You can also like and follow Free Booze Friday on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

And tune in to learn a little bit about all sorts of interesting wines, beers, spirits, liqueurs, and, of course, whiskeys.

The Time Jay Shipped Me Off to Oklahoma for a Week: Part I

by Blair "B-Rex" Loup

The first time Jay sent me on a media trip to represent Bite and Booze, I didn’t know what to expect.

Typically, these kinds of press trips are orchestrated by convention and visitors bureaus to familiarize other travel writers and bloggers with the area in hopes that we’ll like what we see and encourage others to travel to said destination.

I had zero expectations on my first media trip to Shreveport, Louisiana. Originally, I couldn't imagine what Shreveport had to offer that was worth writing about. But during the trip, I was blown away by all the cool things to eat, drink, and do in Shreveport.

With this in mind, when Jay asked if I wanted to go on a trip to Oklahoma City and Stillwater, Oklahoma, I immediately agreed and booked my plane tickets.

Similar to Shreveport, if there’s one thing I learned about Oklahoma, it’s that it isn't what you'd expect.

After indulging in a big (literally physically large) country dinner at Toby Keith's, we enjoyed an informative water taxi ride through Bricktown at sunset before we crashed at the beautiful boutique Ambassador hotel.

Learning about how the Bricktown development came to be with my buddy Karen Dawkins. She admittedly likes me more than Jay. It's the small victories in life that keep you going.

The lovely ladies at Visit OKC had us up early to show us a different side of town where we had the chance to enjoy an authentic Guatemalan breakfast at Cafe Kacao. If you've never eaten breakfast plates piled high with chorizo, black beans, avocado, eggs, and plantains, I highly suggest reevaluating your lifestyle.

Shorty after we were seated, I realized why Tabbi and Brittany from Visit OKC had us up so early. The place stays packed.

Traditional Guatemalan Breakfast at Cafe Kacao

I know what you're thinking...

"Blair, where does a girl like you find herself on the average OKC afternoon? Surely you aren't eating the entire time."

It is impossible to eat all day long, so we took a couple of breaks to tour the American Banjo Museum, home to the largest collection of banjos in the world.

Later, we visited ACM@UCO, a highly esteemed school of music run by the manager of The Flaming Lips, zip-lined across a river much to my chagrin (I have a fear of heights), and had the opportunity to tour the Oklahoma Memorial.

My roommate encouraged me to visit the Memorial, and I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know what it was all about at first. In my defense, I was born in 1991, and my history classes in school never mentioned the bombing. So let's just blame the Louisiana public school system for that one.

The Memorial was emotional and beautiful, and I'm glad I carved out the time to visit. 

The Oklahoma Memorial

Enjoying an Oklahoma brew at Bleu Garten

After a long and exhausting day, I rushed back to the hotel to get ready for drinks at an amazing food truck park/bar, Bleu Garten, and dinner at a farm-to-table restaurant called Ludivine.

The highlight of the meal was demolishing bone marrow and doing bone marrow luge shots around the table.

Afterward, we hit up the restaurant's sister cocktail bar, R & J Lounge and Supper Club for some classic, stuck-in-time cocktails.

Bone Marrow at Ludivine

Most of what I ate in OKC lived up to my standards, but it was our last meal that piqued my interest.

Waffle Champion is everything Leslie Knope ever dreamed of. Sweet waffles, savory waffles, and gourmet sodas to boot; Waffle Champion made me hungry for more of Oklahoma City.

Smoked Duck Banh Mi Waffle packed with pickled veggies, jalapeño, and cilantro mayo

The thing I enjoy most about traveling is discovering great restaurants and bars, and Oklahoma City has plenty of them. We got the chance to try out a handful of cool establishments, but there’s still more to discover, and I can’t wait to go back. From drinking out of a red solo cup in Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar and Grill to zip lining across the Oklahoma River, to doing a luge shot of whiskey out of a bone, I did it all in OKC.