My family wants a bourbon pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Does anyone have any experience with adding liquor to the Pecan Pie (page 302, PPB). Can I make the recipe as is, and just add a tablespoon of bourbon to the filling? Do I need to reduce something else? Not add vanilla? Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I’ve tried this.  The first time I did it, I used 2T bourbon and subbed it for an equal volume of the cream so the pie filling wouldn’t be too runny.  I have in my notes that the acidity of the bourbon was enough to curdle the dairy, and that 2T was too much, flavorwise. 

For my next trial (which may be tomorrow, yippee for Rose’s pecan pie), I’m going to scale back the bourbon to just 1 tsp and add it with the vanilla, off the heat.  But I won’t know about the success of that until after Thanksgiving.

The curdling could be due to my use of a pasteurized (i.e., not an ultra-pasteurized), heavy jersey cream- it seems to love to curdle at the slightest provocation.  It may need a pinch of baking soda to work, or it may be fine with just the lowered quantity of bourbon.

The time I made the pecan pie as written and paired it with the bourbon whipped cream (both Pie/Pastry Bible) the whisper of bourbon was sublime.  Hence my desire to experiment with adding it to the filling.

Good luck, please let us know how it turns out.

The recipe I used last year had 1 of bourbon, and no vanilla extract… I was hoping I could do a straight substitution but I hadn’t considered the curdling issue… (there was no heavy cream in the recipe that I had used). Good luck tomorrow and let me know how it goes!

This year, my pecan pie had one teaspoon of bourbon in addition to the vanilla, and I left out a teaspoon of heavy cream to make double-sure that it wouldn’t be too liquid-y.  It worked perfectly, but I think I like the flavor better as written.  Next time, I’ll make it as written and pair it with the bourbon whipped cream- a heavenly combo.

How did yours turn out?

I was afraid to experiment so I made the pecan pie recipe as written and added the bourbon whipped cream. It was delicious : )  Hmmm.. since you liked the original recipe better than the tweaked recipe, I will probably stick to the same recipe next year! No one seemed to miss the bourbon in the pie anyway!  Thank you for your input…