If you’re a regular at Heartwood Provisions, you might remember smoked sugar from our s’mores back in the day. There, Chef Varin Keokitvon used smoked sugar in the near taffy-like marshmallow puff. Today, Chef Varin is more likely to use his homemade smoked sugar for baking or for pastry presentations. DIY: How to Smoke Sugar…

Chef Varin Keokitvon is patiently awaiting a change in the global vanilla supply. For years, he has used vanilla with wild abandon. Then, in March of 2017, Cyclone Enawo hit Madagascar, home to most of the world’s vanilla production, and the price of vanilla beans skyrocketed. Gone were the days of tossing a few vanilla…

It’s bold and it’s briny, or it’s smooth and it’s grassy, or it’s a riot of campfire and a hint of the sea all in a glass. It’s Scotch and, like bourbon, Irish whiskey, Dickel and Daniels, it’s whisk(e)y. What makes Scotch unique in the whisk(e)y family are the rules around its distillation. Scotch is…

In Chef Varin’s kitchen, little goes to waste. Not the ends of chard, the last asparagus stems, or the tops of strawberries. For chef, this is the beginning of new additions to the menu, such as charcuterie. While most of us associate charcuterie with boards full of meats and cheeses, here those plates also brim…

Black garlic is having a moment and getting love from everyone from chefs to Bon Appétit to Lucky Peach. Also, it’s delicious. While we’ve been using black garlic like it’s salt here at Heartwood Provisions for some time—including in foie gras, on parsnips, and in an absolutely unctuous aïoli—for many what makes this lily black is…

Not just anyone gets the chance to batch more than 1,500 cocktails in one day at the world’s largest cocktail event, Tales of the Cocktail, but Heartwood Provisions bar team member Elias Shyne is not just anyone. He was one of just 40 bartenders called up as Tales of the Cocktail apprentice this July. He…