In this installment

Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon

Gunthorp’s Hickory Smoked Duroc Bacon

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Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon

The Nueske Family started smoking bacon in Hillcrest, Wisconsin more than 100 years before we started serving it on our sandwiches in 1982. The Nueske’s start with well-bred hogs—primarily a cross of Yorkshire, Hampshire, Landrace and Berkshire. The pork is hand trimmed then cured for 24 hours, hung to dry for another 24 hours, then smoked over applewood for 24 hours. The flavor is perfectly balanced between sweet, salty and smoky. That’s why it’s the most popular bacon we sell and why folks like R. W. Apple call it the “Rolls-Royce of Rashers” in the New York Times.

Gunthorp’s Hickory Smoked Duroc Bacon

Greg Gunthorp and his family have a small pasture-based livestock farm in northeastern Indiana where they raise pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. Greg raises Duroc hogs; an old breed whose heritage goes back to the 1800s. Durocs are famous for their flavor. A friend of mine once described it—accurately—as almost a beef-pork blend, like the delicious result of a transgression between a pig and a cow. Gunthorp bacon is dry ‘cured’ for a week with a simple dry rub of salt and celery powder (so technically it’s ‘uncured’). It’s smoked over hickory logs (not chips) for twelve hours. That leaves it lightly smoky, just a little sweet and all the way delicious.