Believe it or not, bacon is working overtime, spending mornings on breakfast menus and nights on cocktail lists. "Bacon should be its own food group," says Don Yovicsin, owner of Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse (220 Moody Street, Waltham, 781.894.4227). "Anything you put bacon on, it just gets better." So he put his theory to the test and infused Absolut vodka with bacon to create drinks like the Bacon: My Greasy Lover ($6), a bacon-flavored screwdriver garnished with a Slim Jim. Paul Westerkamp, beverage director at 33 Restaurant & Lounge (33 Stanhope Street, Boston, 617.572.3311) and STIX (35 Stanhope Street, Boston, 617.456.7849), is combining bacon with its smoky-liquor counterpart — Woodford Reserve bourbon — to create the cocktail equivalents of our favorite breakfast indulgences. Which begs the question: is drinking bacon as delicious as eating it? Our bacon vodka taste-testers had some pretty animated responses after taking a few swigs: "You could pour it on your eggs"; "It’s like the taste of an after-bacon burp"; "It’s like a bacon memory." The STIX bacon-and-bourbon cocktails conjure up in our taste buds memories of crisp fall mornings eating pancakes with sticky maple syrup, bacon, and eggs. Smoky-sweet bourbon, muddled blueberries, and maple syrup mix surprisingly and seamlessly in the Woodford Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon cocktail ($14), and a pineapple garnish adds a fruity layer to the Woodford Bacon and Eggs with a side of Pineapple ($16) — a modern version of a flip, topped with bitters. But bacon, if this whole cocktail thing takes off, promise us you won’t quit your day job.
