Kentucky Derby Brunch Menu: Traditional Ham Biscuits with a Maple Rosemary Butter
If you ask around for some quintessentially southern dishes, chances are you will hear a response that includes ham biscuits quite often. Obviously, a simply delicious combination of salty and savory ham with a fluffy and usually lingeringly sweet and crumbly biscuit is hard to beat, but like most Southern cuisines, it has a deeper history than that. A quick and likely more easily affordable option, salted ham (or, searching farther back, likely salted pork) has been slapped between two biscuits for hundreds of years.
Like the evolution of many of our traditions with deeply rooted southern histories, many that began during a darker time in our country’s past, the ham biscuit has evolved to symbolize a sense of hospitality and welcome. The presence of a ham biscuit usually indicates that something celebratory is afoot. Served at those highest of Southern traditions - brunches honoring Easter, Mother’s Day, baptisms, graduations, wedding and baby showers, and of course, finds itself alongside a frosty Mint Julep as the star of a Kentucky Derby brunch. They’ve also gained that affirmation of the highest culinary praise, especially for Southern specialties, as they are often affectionately referred to as comfort food.
They are also an invitingly blank canvas, and Southern hostesses have been putting their own twists on them for generations. In fact, like many culinary traditions, you can likely ignite an argument (albeit a friendly one) if you ask to compare recipes or favored methods for serving: glazed ham versus thick slabs of country ham; jam, butter, or mustard, or even some proprietary concoction that has been passed down in secrecy on highly coveted recipe cards with hand scrawled notes.
While our family connection to the ham biscuit tradition includes a particularly time-intensive beaten biscuit, we have a variety of recipes we call upon for hosting. Laborious and involved, traditional beaten biscuits are more a labor of love. They are a statement of dedication and skill, indicating an unspoken yet deeply rich connection to that other process of dedication, old-fashioned know-how, and time-intensive production of bourbon itself.
A smaller, harder, and more dense biscuit than the commonly envisioned buttermilk biscuit, the beaten biscuit is served more out of a desire to continue a beloved tradition than to adhere to a preferred dining experience. Should you be so inclined, we have the Van Winkle Family Beaten Biscuit with Maple Glazed Ham to happily share.
If you are (like us) more pressed for time and want to serve a delicious ham biscuit, with nods to tradition and southern flavor, we recommend our Ham Biscuits with Maple Rosemary Butter infused with our signature Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon Barrel-Aged Pure Maple Syrup. Especially for a Kentucky Derby party, these ham biscuits will highlight the convergence of Southern tradition, flair, and flavor.
Nana and Pappy Van Winkle hosted legendary Kentucky Derby parties. Their Derby menu, like Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon itself, was undeniable in its simplicity, adherence to tradition, dedication to flavor, and invitation to hospitality and enjoyment. As memorialized in the pages of “But Always Fine Bourbon,” once beckoned to these iconic parties guests would find “famous mint juleps in frosty silver cups, {and} the dining room table laden with the tradition Kentucky fare: scrambled eggs, buttered grits, and of course, beaten biscuits with country ham.”
Today’s Kentucky Derby Brunch menu is delightfully similar to theirs. However, we have a few modern hospitality secrets to pulling off more effortless entertaining - like store-bought biscuits, our favorite deli counter Kentucky ham and, of course, our Pappy Van Winkle Maple Rosemary Butter.
We rely on Mary B.’s Tea Biscuits (sold frozen) or grab your own favorite store-bought or easily made biscuits (we also love Charleston, South Carolina-based Callie’s Biscuit). We prefer a traditional salty country ham. We get ours from the old-fashioned deli counter at the local institution and family-owned Plehn’s Bakery, “a Louisville favorite since 1924.”
The real secret, though, is slathering the biscuit in a homemade Maple Rosemary Butter. That’s right, butter gets better. You can even amp up the sweet heat with our Pappy Van Winkle Spicy Maple Syrup for a ham biscuit with a bite. No matter what else you serve at your Kentucky Derby Party, we promise these ham biscuits will fly off the tray faster than the horses can round the third turn.
