Old Fashioned Southern Hospitality

Tauranga’s RYE American Kitchen is a Southern Thang, dishing up hot plates of traditional soul food like pork’n’grits and buttermilk chicken. These tasty All-American classics deserved a cocktail to match, so Rye have been working on a barrel-aged old fashioned with their own secret ingredients.

“We try to make everything in the restaurant in-house as much as possible,” manager Jay Kolenski told us, “which always keeps things exciting and fun. When it comes to cocktails, we’re always in search of new ideas and twists on old classics.”

Jay is tight-lipped about the secret ingredients in Rye’s iconic Old Fashioned.

“It’s something we’ve perfected step by step. Woodford Reserve supplied us with our own mini-barrels so that we could experiment with different recipes. The barrels are small enough that we can age the bourbon in just two weeks. That’s how long it takes to have it take on some up the richness of the char and a hint of sweetness.”

Char Sealed Delivered I’m yours!

Bourbon is distinctly charred in a new oak barrel, which changes the nature of the oak itself to yield the best possible reaction between wood and whiskey.

“We take Woodford Reserve bourbon to begin with,” says Jay, ”and we have our own recipe for a brown sugar syrup that we make in-house. Next we add in a couple of different types of bitters and our own secret ingredients.”

Time in the barrel allows the bourbon to interact with the other ingredients.

“We sample it from between 10 to 14 days to see how everything is coming together,” says Jay. “What you want is for all the ingredients to bond a bit more instead of standing out on their own. And it gets quite a lot sweeter by the time it comes out of the barrel that’s for sure.”

Southern Style Hospitality for Y’all

Visitors to Rye should get ready for bona fide faire finer than frog hair!

The classic Southern dish pork’n’grits is braised NZ pork belly cooked in pork fat and rich in flavour. Meanwhile the sage chicken is marinated in buttermilk prior to frying so that it gets crispy on the outside and retains all the moisture on the inside.

Y’all be sure to order mash, gravy, ‘slaw & a coupla’ good ol’ fashuns wid that!

RYE American Kitchen, 
19 Wharf St, Tauranga, 3110

Braised Pork Belly, Pulled Shoulder, Crubeen, Grits & Gravy $32
Buttermilk & Sage Fried Chicken, Slaw, Mash & Gravy, $28
Barrel-aged Old Fashioned, $15