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Bring home the boozy bacon with whiskey-bred pigs

One distillery wants to make bacon even better (is that possible?) by turning regular pigs into tasty, whiskey-enhanced swine for salivating chefs and foodies.

Bonnie Burton
Journalist Bonnie Burton writes about movies, TV shows, comics, science and robots. She is the author of the books Live or Die: Survival Hacks, Wizarding World: Movie Magic Amazing Artifacts, The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls Against Girls, Draw Star Wars, Planets in Peril and more! E-mail Bonnie.
Bonnie Burton

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Whiskey-enhanced pigs make for some tasty bacon thanks to Templeton Rye Distillery. The Templeton Rye Distillery

It's hard to improve bacon, but the Templeton Rye Distillery in Iowa hopes to do just by raising booze-infused pigs.

Twenty-five purebred Duroc pigs -- an older breed of an American domestic red swine with droopy ears -- will be enhanced with Templeton Rye whiskey.

The pigs, raised in an open-pen setting on an Iowa family farm, will eat a unique diet of feed infused with whiskey mash, which in turn changes the taste of the meat. The feed, created from spent-grain mash, was developed by Iowa State University swine nutrition expert Mark Bertram, according to the Templeton Rye Heritage Pork Project page.

The team at Templeton Rye Distillery aims to have each pig reach 210 pounds for optimum flavor and quality. The whiskey-enhanced pigs will be processed and ready to deliver to restaurants and famished foodies by June or July of this year.

You can even request a whiskey pig, but Templeton Rye makes the final decision on who gets to bring home the boozy bacon to make the ultimate Bacon Banana Foster or a BLT sandwich with some bite.

"Whether you're a chef interested in creating a special menu event at your restaurant or a Bootleggers Society member interested in smoking a pig in your own back yard, we're currently entertaining all inquiries," Templeton Rye says on its Heritage Pork Project page.