I am not sure where this post should go, since it is 7am. It was supposed to be dinner, but I got drunk and passed out.

Anyways, I just accidentally made the best thing I've ever cooked. I recently bought a book called Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and it's about curing and smoking meat. I decided to make some bacon first, but it takes a week to cure. So, in the meantime, I made some whiskey-maple smoked chicken. You first brine the chicken in water mixed with kosher salt, brown sugar & sodium nitrite. Sodium nitrite is what gives cured meat that super red color and distinctive flavor. It is technically poisonous if you consume it directly, but if you follow a recipe it is like a magic ingredient. Also, there's more of it in naturally occurring quantities in spinach than there is in salami, so go and blow me before you pipe up and talk shit about nitrates.

Anyways, I brined my chicken for 24 hours, then dried it for 24 hours, then I was going to smoke it for 4-5 hours with some cherrywood. I put the chicken on, had some problems controlling the temperature and then shut my grill down to let the temps come down. My grill went out completely and I had to restart everything. After I got it going again, I cooked the chicken for 2 hours and glazed it with a mix of: maple syrup, maple sugar, Johnny Walker Black & cayenne pepper. Then I kept drinking and passed out for 6 hours. I thought the whole thing was ruinted, but my grill never got above 155°, so basically the chicken just slow-smoked for about 8 hours. I glazed it again and bumped the grill temp up to close to 200° to finish the bird off.

This turned out being one of those times where I made something that was above and beyond what you could purchase in a restaurant or store. If this shit was for sale, it would go for about $100 a chicken.