A culinary journey through Alabama will appeal to all appetites

With so many great foods to try, the state is making it easier for visitors with the 100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama program. The program highlights the quintessential place to try some of the Alabama’s most iconic food, from barbecue to seafood and Asian to Italian.

Want to try authentic Chicken and White Sauce? Head to Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q, a four-generation family-owned restaurant in Decatur known for mouth-watering slow-cooked meats and nationally award-winning sauces. In the 1920s, owner Big Bob Gibson created his tangy mayonnaise-based sauce —it also contains vinegar, apple juice, horseradish, lemon juice, black pepper and cayenne pepper — to compliment his hickory-fired smoked chicken.

Also on the list is the boiled crawfish served with corn and small red potatoes at Crawmama’s in Guntersville — its secret is to season the water before it starts boiling and then waiting 10 minutes before adding the crawfish — and the baked grits from Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham. Its grits are combined with butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, white pepper and egg, and then served in a buttery Parmesan sauce made using white wine, sherry vinegar, shallots, country ham, heavy cream, hot sauce, lemon and herbs. It is then served with wild mushrooms, strips of country ham and garnished with thyme.

International flavours are also on the 100 Dishes list, including the Kadoma Tuna, featuring spicy tuna, a tempura rice cake, avocado, jalapeño, tobiko (flying fish roe) and eel sauce from Jinsei in the city of Homewood, and the Black Forest Torte consisting of four layers of dark chocolate cake soaked in cherry liquor and topped with fresh whipped cream, chocolate shavings and cherries from Klingler’s in Vestavia Hills.

With so many dishes and restaurants on the list, there is a 100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama brochure to help you plan out your meals — and desserts — and a journal so you can write down your impressions about every flavour and taste bub-tingling nuance. You will soon be on your way to being an Alabama food connoisseur.

Discover what’s brewing in Alabama

Just over a decade ago, Alabama’s government made it easier for the craft beer scene to develop, and now there are several breweries and brew pubs operating across the state. One place where the scene is really hopping is in Huntsville, a community located in northern Alabama that was where the U.S. space program and Saturn V rockets were developed.

The Downtown Huntsville Craft Beer Trail includes stops at eight local micro-breweries. Start at Straight to Ale, which was named best brewer in Alabama in 2019, and whose beers have playful names playing on the city’s ties with space, like its award-winning Monkeynaut IPA. Follow it up with a visit to Yellowhammer Brewery that draws on Belgian and German brewing traditions with a Southern interpretation, and the small batch Green Bus Brewing. Rounding out the Huntsville trail are Rocket Republic Brewing, InnerSpace Brewing Company, Chandler’s Ford Brewing, Mad Malts Brewing and The Brewers Cooperative.

Not far away, Gadsden, located an hour-and-a-half southeast of Huntsville, is home to Back Forty Beer Company, which is found in an old Sears, Roebuck and Company building and regularly brews six different beers along with seasonal offerings. (It also operates a location in Huntsville.)

Other brews to sip include the complex but balanced craft offerings at TrimTab Brewing Company in South Birmingham, the made-on-site offerings — you can even watch the brewers at work — at Black Warrior Brewing Company in Tuscaloosa, and the cutting-edge craft creations from the Big Beach Brewing Company in Gulf Shores.

Sample Alabama’s vintages

Northeastern Alabama marks the starting point of the Appalachian Mountains, which from here stretch up into Canada. It is the mountain chain’s foothills that help make this corner of the state — along with its climate and geology — the perfect location to grow grapes. The North Alabama Wine Trail is a collection of five wineries in the region that are nurturing everything from European Cabernets to Muscadine grapes native to the southeastern U.S.

Start your wine tastings at Jules J. Berta Winery in Albertville, which planted its first vines in 1987 and produces several interestingly named bottles, such as its blended white wine called White Trash or its Black Widow, made from a blend of its Syrah and Cabernet grapes. Not far away are Wills Creek Winery in Attalla, which offers a tasting of up to 20 varieties and host a monthly wine-making class, and Maraella Winery that opened in Hokes Bluff and has received a gold medal for its 2014 Romanian Oak cast Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rounding out the trail’s stops are the Muscadine-growing Fruithurst Winery Co., which is located in the town of Fruithurst and took its name from one of the original wineries started in Alabama in 1894, and High Country Cellars that grows both grapes and fruit to produce sweet, semi-sweet, dry and charred wines. Before you head out on your tastings, print off a copy of your North Alabama Wine Trail Passport, that, once filled, gets you a free gift. You can also pick a passport up at participating trail wineries.

Other wineries in the state include red Muscadine wine producing Morgan Creek Vineyards in Harpersville, the locally sourced fruit, Scuppernong and Muscadine grape wines at Perdido Vineyards in Perdido, and the hand harvested and bottled wine form Whippoorwill Vineyards in Notasulga.

To learn more about Alabama’s Year of Food and additional culinary adventures to experience in the state, visit Alabama.Travel.

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