Above image: The Baken Old Fashioned
Love bacon? Then this new-to-market range of bacon snacks and confectionery is a dream come true.
Baken is a labour of love by friends and entrepreneurs Rachel Carrasco and Kelly Parreño. The duo grew up in the Philippines eating all-things deliciously porcine, and decided in their adulthood to come up with the ultimate snack made of what they enjoy most: bacon.
The pair spent three years getting greasy in the kitchen before coming up with their current line of products. Their resulting flagship snack is the Real Bacon Crisps, a salty-sweet and smoky nibble made from real bacon.
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These are not bacon-flavoured chips, but ready-to-eat, real bacon strips. While they can be consumed as is, try not to finish them all upon opening and give them a go as a topping over salads, sandwiched between sourdough, or even as sprinkles on desserts.
One of the best ways (in our books) to savour the Real Bacon Crisps is to make an Old Fashioned out of it (check out the recipe below). The savoury smokiness of the crisps complements the cocktail perfectly, and is an easy rendition of the Bacon Old Fashioned as popularised by New York’s famed cocktail bar, Please Don’t Tell.
Other products in Baken’s current range include the Bacon Cookies, Bacon Brittle, and Bacon Jam. The former two are the perfect marriage of salty and sweet with bacon bits mixed generously in confectionery, while the latter makes for a great condiment or spread. Like the Real Bacon Crisps, all the products are made using actual bacon without any artificial substitutes.
Baken is now available in markets including Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia and Australia.
To get your hands on Baken or for more recipes that make good use of Baken’s various products, head over to their website.
Recipe:
Baken Old Fashioned (taken and adapted from Baken)
Ingredients:
- 60ml bourbon
- 3 tea spoons 1:1 brown sugar syrup
- 3 orange peels
- 4 strips Baken Real Bacon Crisps
- Ice
Steps:
- Crush the Baken Real Bacon Crisps into small pieces.
- Combine the crushed Baken Real Bacon Crisps, 1 orange peel, bourbon and ice into a cocktail shaker.
- Proceed to shake for 1 minute or until the outsides of the shaker has condensed.
- Strain the mixture though a fine mesh strainer into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice.
- Rim the rocks glass with an orange peel.
- Garnish with a new strip of Baken Real Bacon Crisps and the remaining orange peel.
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