They say, there isn’t a Kentuckian who isn’t headed home or thinking about home. These extra boozy, chocolate bourbon balls will have you doing both.

My great-grandma was buried in Hardin County, Kentucky when I was in first grade. Consequently, I don’t remember her. All I have is a picture of her holding me at eight months old and her legacy, passed down from my mom. That legacy is that her traditional Kentucky bourbon balls were extra boozy and burned going down.

Flash forward to my young adulthood:

I was working at my first duty station in Montgomery, Alabama right after college. Feeling a little homesick during the first week of May, I decided to experiment in my kitchen and came up with the perfect mix of chocolate and booze for Kentucky Bourbon Balls.

Since the military brings folks from all over the globe together, it’s standard to share our regional traditions. So I decided to share my Kentucky traditions and brought my concoction to work for my co-workers. It wasn’t a whole five minutes that my bourbon balls were on the free-for-all table that my outlook started blowing up with e-mails:

“OMG, it burns!”
“I’m going to be driving home drunk!”
“These cookies are like taking a shot.”
“Keep em’ coming!”

Oh, maybe bringing balls of bourbon was not the best idea. Didn’t think that one all the way through. Or perhaps it was the best idea ever! Depends on your perspective. It was even mentioned at my going away, the time I set the whole office drunk. Whoops! I’m not sure exactly how Mama Claire made her bourbon balls, but they seemed to yield the same effect. I just chalk any differences in recipe up to generational evolution. Most recipes out on the interwebs today call for ‘Nilla wafers. I nix that. Instead, my balls go for max chocolate flavor dancing with maximum bourbon flavor.

So, if you find yourself hosting a Kentucky Derby party this spring, or just longing for home, make sure this recipe is used to keep it authentically Kentucky.

Mama Claire’s Great Grand Daughter’s Bourbon Balls

Prep: 1 day (Yes Really, a whole day)
Yields: 75 balls

INGREDIENTS

1 cup chocolate graham crackers finely crumbled in a food processor
1 cup Oreo cookie crumbs (Oreo makes 8-inch pie crusts that measures out to be 1 cup of cookie crumbs, or you can scrape the icing out of the cookies then use a food processor, they cost about the same using Oreo brand)
1 cup Bourbon (Wild Turkey Honey, Knob Creek, Woodford Reserve, Buffalo Trace Four Roses…I used Makers, just make sure it’s from Kentucky)
1 cup Chopped pecans (or sliced almonds or ground walnuts)
5 0z package of dry chocolate pudding mix
1/2 cup Cocoa powder
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup Brown sugar
4 TBS unsalted, softened butter
1 TBS vanilla extract

Optional toppings:
Melted Chocolate sauce (dark or white)
Cocoa powder
Finely chopped nuts
Powdered sugar
Coconut
Icing

Notes: You might take people’s nut allergies into consideration and make a nut-free batch. Although most of my recpes follow my cultural tradition of seasoning until the ancestors say enough, I actually tested this recipe for measurment accuracy.

DIRECTIONS

1. In a covered bowl, soak one cup of finely chopped pecans in a cup of bourbon for hours. HOURS!!! Try eight. Soak the nuts in the morning, go to work, come back that evening and start mixing. Or soak overnight.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine your cookie & cracker crumbs, cocoa powder, semisweet chocolate chips, and brown sugar. Mix.
3. Add pecans & bourbon soak to the dry chocolate ingredients bowl. Then add the rest of the wet mix ingredients and mix together until the mixture is moldable like damp sand. If you overdo it and the mix is too runny (it won’t be) add powdered sugar. If it’s not mixing enough, add hints of more bourbon.
4. Using a mini cooking scoop, roll the batter into 1-inch balls. Sit them in mini cupcake cups for individual servings or let sit on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for an hour.
5. To decorate: Roll balls in powdered sugar, ground nuts, chocolate sprinkles, cocoa powder or drizzle with sweetened condensed milk or icing for garnish.

Store in an airtight container and chill in the refrigerator. These taste best two days later after bourbon has had time to permeate. They also freeze well. You know you made them just right when you get the enthusiastic reaction and have folks telling you it burns going down like a shot of bourbon in cookie form. These extra boozy, chocolate treats will have you back in the bluegrass in no time, if only in your heart.

While you’re in a Kentucky state of mind, head on over to my Hot Brown recipe and make it a Kentucky kind of day.