My Bacon Mini Bar

Today my "Bacon Across America" adventure took me to Broadbent Country Hams in Kuttawa, Kentucky.

Broadbent Hams was founded in 1909 by the Broadbent family in Western Kentucky. In 1999, Ronny and Beth Drennan purchased the business from the Broadbent family. The Drennan's recently moved the business to a brand new facility in Kuttawa, but they continue to use the same methods that have been used to make Broadbent hams and bacon for almost 100 years.

When you walk in the front door of the Broadbent store, you are greeted with a rush of lovely smoky air - a scent I've become quite familiar with over the last 72 hours. The brand new facility is much more modern than some of the smaller, older operations I've visited over the last couple days. With spacious walk-in smoke rooms, cooling rooms, and freezers, there is plenty of room for the operation to expand and grow. But even with modern technology - including a smoking machine that makes the process of smoking the bacon much more efficient - the Broadbent approach to makin' bacon remains the same as it was when the business was founded.

Broadbent's most popular bacon products are hickory smoked bacon and pepper bacon. But they've experimented with some other flavors over the years - they generously gave me a package of their sun dried tomato bacon to take home. I can't wait to try some - it's a flavor I've never heard of. If you want to check out all the products Broadbent offers, click here to visit their website.

I'm currently in St. Louis for the night. The amount of bacon I'm now traveling with has started to create something of a logistical challenge. Fortunately I was able to make some room in the hotel mini bar to store the bacon overnight (I may have consumed a cocktail or two to create more space...the sacrifices I make for my bacon). Wouldn't it be great if this is what all hotel mini bars looked like?

Tomorrow I'm off to a couple smokehouses west of St. Louis, and then I head up to Iowa for a few days. More baconage to come...

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