"Prison Cheese" Proves Growing Problem for Correctional Authorities

Monitoring and policing the nearly 200,000 inmates in California prisons has long been a challenge for authorities. Officials constantly struggle with controlling contraband such as drugs and weapons, but now they face a new challenge: a rise in "prison cheese." Department of Corrections Media Relations Director Byron Hadley explains:

"For years we had problems with pruno, a fermented wine-type beverage that inmates would make in their toilets with fruit from the dining halls. Gradually, some inmates switched from produce to dairy, and now we increasingly have inmates producing cheese in these same cell block toilets."

Referred to by inmates as "milk rot," this homemade cheese has led to an increase in black market activity both in cheeses and cheese making supplies. Last month, a group of guards at Pelican Bay was arrested as part of black market ring that sold rennet tablets to inmates.

The problem has become so widespread in the system that different prisons are associated with different types of cheese. Ig Jenkins, director of the Department's new Contraband Cheese Task Force (CCTF), explains, "When we recover a cache of illegal cheese, we can tell where it comes from, which gives us clues to the lines of operation between different prisons in the system. For instance, Corcoron is a big cheddar producer. Solano is only a stone's throw from all of those Sonoma County goat farms, so if we see a chevre, we know there is a 95% chance it originated there."

But California's most notorious prison is also its most notorious source of contraband. According to Jenkins, "Pelican Bay is a cesspool of illegal cheese. I've seen everything you can think of come out of there, epoisse, livarot, guryere, ricotta salata, even feta."

The CCTF is up against great odds, but Jenkins believes the Task Force's approach needs to use a carrot as well as a stick.

"We can bust hundreds of illegal milk rot mongers, but until we give inmates an option beyond USDA Loaf Cheese in the dining halls, we're going to have to deal with this problem."

Passion Play

It's rare to find passion fruit in LA farmers' markets, but last Sunday I found a great batch of them at the Hollywood market. They are at the stand with yellow crates that sells mostly avocados, on Ivar, just north of the Selma intersection on the west side of the street.

Not only did they have that trademark, deep passion fruit flavor, but they actually had some sweetness to them (passion fruit tends to be quite tart). I have no idea if they will be around this Sunday, but if they are, I'm getting more.

Whiskey Wednesday; Waxing Eloquent About Maker's Mark

For many years, the only name in premium Bourbon was Maker's Mark. In fact, Maker's did much to invent the premium category. Founded in 1953 by Bill Samuels, Maker's Mark bottled its wheated recipe Bourbon in a distinct bottle with a red wax seal and spelled its product "whisky", like the Scots do. In 1981, Samuels sold his distillery to Hiram Walker, which sold it to Allied-Lyons/Allied Domecq, which subsequently sold it to Fortune Brands/Jim Beam, the current owner.

Unlike nearly every other distillery, for years, Maker's had only one standard bottling, the familiar square bottle, red wax Maker's Mark. They would sometimes change the wax color to various team colors, but the juice inside was always the same. The only exceptions were a few very limited edition versions bottled at higher proofs or using slightly older whiskeys, such as the gold wax and black wax versions made largely for export markets. For the most part, Maker's was Maker's, until now.

This year, for the first time, Maker's released an entirely new expression that will be a regular bottling. Maker's Mark 46 is made by taking regular Maker's and finishing it in barrels with seared French Oak staves. That is, it is given additional ageing with some fresh oak pieces. And the name "46" is not, as has been often assumed, the abv, though the 46 is a bit higher proof than the traditional Maker's.

Since I've never formally reviewed the traditional Maker's Mark, I'll take this opportunity to review both and compare.


Maker's Mark, 45% abv ($20)

Like many, I feel a strong connection to the standard Maker's, as it was one of the first Bourbons I really appreciated. Long before I was blogging and buying limited edition whiskeys, I was sipping Maker's (on the rocks) with fish curries at the old Broadway Thai. (Bourbon actually goes remarkably well with Thai food, which may be the subject of some future post).

The Maker's nose is...Maker's. It's rock candy. The palate is sweet but with some citrus and the typical, savory wheat notes. The finish may be the best part, a sweet Bourbon finale. It's not complex or intriguing, but it is what it is, and that is a very drinkable wheated Bourbon.


Maker's Mark 46, 47% abv ($32)

The nose is strong with maple syrup, so much so that it reminds me of a Canadian; eventually, that dissipates to a more familiar corny Bourbon nose. The palate is rich and savory with plenty of oak. The additional oak notes make it thicker, chewier and more complex than the standard Maker's, but still with noticeable wheat notes lasting into a very pleasant finish.

The new Maker's is a definite step up from the standard version, adding complexity and heft. If you are a Maker's fan, you should definitely try it.

More than Bread: Qing Dao Bread Food

In my endless quest for great dumplings, especially in the wake of Dumpling Master's closure, I have been scouring the San Gabriel Valley for great dumplings. My latest stop was the Qing Dao Bread Food, which specializes in dumplings and buns.

Overall, the buns an dumplings here were a bit uneven, though the good things were very good. Boiled lamb dumplings were fantastic, with a great well-seasoned lamb filling (indeed, better than those I used to get at Dumpling Master). The fried dumplings were a bit too doughy for me and the other bread heavy buns were pretty unexciting. There was a traditional, but well done pork bao, but for some reason, it's only on the menu in Chinese. Look for it directly under the pork with cabbage on the "Fried Stuffed Dumpling" portion of the menu.

My favorite dish, though, was the noodle soup listed as "pork chop with mustard greens." They nailed every element here, soup, meat and noodle. It was a dark, porky broth with chewy, handmade noodles. The chunks of pork chop, marinated in a sweet soy glaze, were fall off the bone tender. I slurped up all the broth I could and delighted in the varying textures of noodle and pork. Great stuff. This was definitely the best dish of the meal, and the kind of thing I will be craving for a long time.

Between the soup and the lamb dumplings, Qing Dao will be a definite return trip and I will want to try more of their boiled dumplings, but next trip, I'll stay away from the buns and fried dumplings.

Qing Dao Bread Food
301 N. Garfield Ave. #G
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 312-6978

Taiwanese Iron Eggs

My brother, ever cognizant of my desire to try exciting new dishes, recently returned from Taiwan with something I hadn't seen before: iron eggs. Iron eggs are a Taiwanese delicacy from the Danshui area of Taipei. They are quail eggs (I think) which have been marinated in a sweet soy glaze and dried. Through the process, they turn jet-black and shrink to the size of small, black olives. They are a snack for tea, so we brewed up some of the best tea I had on hand, and gave them a whirl.

The whites (or blacks, really) of these eggs were pretty rubbery, but the yolks had the texture of deviled egg yolks, and retained a lot of good sweet-soy flavor. These salty little numbers would make an excellent bar snack, much more fun than a bowl of peanuts.

Butchering the Pig

How did I miss this?

One of Mozza2Go's classes for their "scuola di pizza" was entitled "Introduction to Pig Butchery" and included this great description:

Join Mozza Chef Chad Colby as he demonstrates how to utilize a whole pig and turn it into a meal.

Yes, for only $150, I could have learned how to butcher a whole pig. Now granted, this is not the most practical of classes for the lay-cook. I mean, the closest I ever come to a whole pig is at the LA County Fair, but it just seems so cool.

If anyone has taken the class, please chime in. I'd love to hear about it and to know what you did with the snout.

Whiskey Wednesday: Emancipate Yourself from Kentucky Whiskey - Redemption Rye

After prohibition, when the great rye whiskey tradition of the mid-Atlantic died out, Kentucky became the de facto capital of rye whiskey, but rye always played second (or maybe third) fiddle to Bourbon. For decades, rye lovers had only a few choices, all of them afterthoughts from the big Kentucky distilleries: Jim Beam, Old Overholt, Wild Turkey. About ten years ago, rye started making a comeback, but it was still largely Kentucky-based. Brands like Sazerac (from Buffalo Trace) and Rittenhouse (from Brown-Forman) started making waves. Ryes targeting a more upscale market were released by Wild Turkey (Russel's Reserve) and Jim Beam (rī)¹.

But in the last few years, a new and somewhat unlikely state has come into the rye game with a new, kicked up, rye flavor. Suddenly, Indiana rye is all the rage, or as we might call it in LA, Kentucky-adjacent whiskey.

The only whiskey distillery in Indiana is Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana (LDI), located right across the Ohio River from Kentucky. Formerly the Seagram's distillery, LDI was acquired by Pernod Ricard when Seagram's broke up and then sold to Angostura (the bitters people).

The interesting thing about LDI is that while they make Bourbon, corn whiskey and rye, as well as gin, they don't bottle any of it under their own label. All of it is sold to independent bottlers or blenders. Therefore, we don't always know when we are drinking LDI whiskey, though we have some clues. (See a list of their products and mashbills here).

Templeton Rye, bottled in Iowa, admits that it uses LDI rye. Cougar Bourbon and rye, an export brand bottled by Foster's for the Australian market, is also bottled by LDI. The speculation is that High West gets its whiskeys from Four Roses, but that the rye was originally distilled at LDI, back when both it and Four Roses were part of the Seagram's empire.

Redemption Rye is a new rye whiskey on the market bottled by Strong Spirits, a bottler located in Bardstown, Kentucky. The whiskey doesn't explicitly say who distilled it, but the bottle states that it was made in Indiana, which means LDI.

The intriguing thing about LDI's rye whiskey is that the mashbill they use is 95% rye and 5% malt, which is an extremely high rye content with no corn, which makes it quite different from the Kentucky ryes. They also make a bourbon with a 99% corn mashbill, but I don't know if it's ever been bottled on its own (as opposed to being blended with other whiskeys.)


Tasting

Redemption Rye, aged over 2 years, Batch 2, 46% abv ($27).

The nose has lovely, soft, fruity spice notes followed by some herbs and grassy notes. The first thing that strikes me on the palate is that it tastes young; it has that bold, overly herbal/medicinal quality that is typical of young rye. The spice is there, but it's still in a very raw form, though more of it comes out on the finish. This one needs to spend a few more years in the barrel to round it out and take the edge off.

File this one under "has potential but needs work" or maybe, "None but ourselves can age our whiskey."