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Aware of my epicurean delight for all things porcine — and most especially bacon itself — Alice and Zach enrolled me in the Bacon of the Month Club for my birthday last month. The first shipment arrived just before I went to Ohio for Thanksgiving.

In this edition of Cambridge Bacon Review, we’ll indulge in FATHER’S hickory smoked country bacon from Gatton Farms of Bremen, Kentucky.

Right away I knew this bacon was special. Whether the package exterior was slightly contaminated, or the sturdy plastic vacuum-pack was unable to contain that universe of aroma, I care not which. All I know is that from the moment I opened that ice-packed box, I could smell the hand-rubbed, country-smoked bouquet.

When I cut open the inner package, put my nose inside the bag, and inhaled deeply, the sheer concentration of hickory molecules almost made me pass out. My Blood Hickory Content was off the charts. There is no mistaking this for ordinary, chemical-cured bacon, the kind of bacon you might buy at a 7-11, the kind of bacon that real midwestern farmers wouldn’t feed to prisoners of war.

This is manly, thick-cut bacon; a bacon that you must treat with tender care and all due respect, cooked slowly over a low flame. For a less subtle hand would ruin it with crispiness, long before the deep fats have a chance to vacate the premises. I like to cook my bacon using chopsticks. To protect my hands. It’s a thing I do.

When it comes to flavour, that first bite made me believe that an entire midwestern, hand-rubbed, salt-cured, hickory-smoked, slow-aged ham had taken up residence in my mouth. We are dealing with intense taste… but not bacon perfection. I like hickory almost as much as the next person, and this may be an admittedly-inexperienced bacon palette talking: but I think the smoke is too thick. Almost nothing else gets a chance against the overpowering wood flavour. I would love to describe the subtle taste of the meat, how you can tell that these pigs were themselves dining on quality ingredients, and so on. But in all honesty, all I can taste is autumn fireplaces.

Given the choice between this and almost any other bacon available to me outside of a specialty butcher, it is a clear winner. However, with eleven months of artisan bacon ahead of me, I must be ruthlessly discriminating in my judgments. When I consider bacon nirvana, on an absolute scale, it just doesn’t match up.

FATHER’s hickory smoked country bacon: C+