Bar Louie hasn’t been afraid to get creative with their burger recipes in the past, topping this American classic with everything from fried eggs to poutine. Now the gastrobar, with a location in Evansville at 7700 Eagle Crest Blvd., is adding something sweet to the traditionally savory dish.
Bar Louie’s That’s My Jam Burger is a house seasoned, custom blended brisket and short rib chuck patty topped with garlic aioli, slices of bacon, bourbon old fashioned jam, arugula, garlic herb cheese, and pickles skewered to the top of the bun.
The restaurant’s latest culinary concoction plays on all the senses as sweet meets savory for this jam-packed burger. The sweetness from the jam balances the umami of the burger blend, garlic herb cheese, and bacon slices, while the arugula adds an extra flair to the dish by cutting through the sweet jam with a layer of pepperiness. The $14.50 burger is served on a lined metal tray with a lined mug filled with the guest’s choice of fries or tater tots.
“To add something that has hints of sweetness on a burger, it can be polarizing for people,” says Steve Madonna, senior vice president of culinary at Bar Louie. “That’s why we really tried to add some of those savory notes to it, so it pulls everything together instead of shocking your palette.”
The bourbon old fashioned jam is a play off the traditional cocktail and made in house using locally sourced ingredients. The jam combines all the elements familiar to an Old Fashioned: crushed cherries mixed with a splash of bourbon whiskey, brown and light sugar, bitters, and a squeeze of orange.
“We started playing around, putting it on a burger and that’s really where it all came together,” says Madonna. “It was kind of the star of the burger and everything else came along for the ride.”
The That’s My Jam Burger is featured on the Bar Louie menu insert with a Winter Citrus Punch cocktail quarterly cocktail, a combination of Deep Eddy Lemon, O3 orange liqueur, Chloe pinot grigio, vanilla, winter citrus, sparkling water, orange, and grapefruit. The cocktail is part of Bar Louie’s Cocktail for a Cause program, which donates $1 for every cocktail sold to Action Against Hunger, a global humanitarian organization that helps malnourished children and communities.
Though the burger was originally only to be a limited time offer available through the end of March, Madonna says they are seeing such great success that they are planning to incorporate it into the main menu.
“We’ve actually heard from a number of guests that what was intended to be an item that was supposed to be shared, ended up bot being a shared item and the other person had to order their own burgers,” he says.
