The Oxford Bourbon Festival & Auction is a three day celebration of all things bourbon, with dinners, tastings and an auction where you can bid to own rare bourbons by the bottle and perhaps a custom-bottled barrel of your own. Proceeds from the weekend benefit Move on Up Mississippi. For tickets and more information, visit www.oxfordbourbonfest.com.
What started here in Oxford is now taking the south by storm! Big Bad Breakfast has grown to include three locations in Alabama (Birmingham, Homewood, Florence) and one in Inlet Beach, FL with Charleston, SC on the horizon. Head over to the new big bad website for details and check out this recent profile on Eater.
“…And while the town may be known primarily for two things, books and football, there’s much more to see and do. Cool shops, museums, and innovative chefs mean that the relatively tiny town (the population hovers just above 20,000) punches above its weight.”
Click here to read the whole article from Vouge.
“Atlanta Food & Wine Festival kicked off this weekend in the heart of Midtown at Loews Hotel and Peidmont Park. Hundreds of classes, wine dinners, parties and of course…meals were planned to highlight creativity in the kitchen. We took the impossibly hard job upon ourselves to eat and drink our way through Atlanta and pull together our Top Five festival highlights.”
Click here to read more about City Grocery Group’s Pastry Chef, Austin Agent’s time in Atlanta. 
“Oxford captured the heart and imagination of chef and restaurateur John Currence 25 years ago and he has been working since to bring the best to the community’s table.”
Click here to read the whole Oxford Eagle article.
“From the James Beard Award winner, Top Chef Masters contestant, and acclaimed author comes this fun, festive, and highly caffeinated ode to the joys and rituals of the Southern breakfast, with 75 recipes inspired by the author’s popular restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi.”
Click here for more information and to pre-order Big Bad Breakfast!
The Oxford Eagle published an article featuring an interview with Chef John Currence discussing New Year’s Day traditions revolving around food.
From the article: “John Currence, chef and owner of the City Grocery Restaurant group, said growing up his family even took cooking greens a step further for good luck. “The traditional foods are cabbage and greens, that as I understood were to bring prosperity in the new year. Black-eyed peas were meant to bring luck in the coming year.””
Read more here.
VacationIdea.com named Big Bad Breakfast in their list of 15 Best Things to See & Do in Oxford, MS.
From the article: “Even if you have never been a breakfast person, you will probably become one after you try what Big Bad Breakfast has to offer.”
Read more here.
In December, Sam Sifton told readers “What to Cook This Week,” suggesting John Currence’s recipe for Coca-Cola Brined Fried Chicken in NYT Cooking.
From the article: “We’ll be frying chicken for that, in accordance with John Currence’s awesome recipe and eating it on the couch with a big bowl of Julia Moskin’s crusty mac and cheese.”
Read more here.
Condé Nast Traveler features Snackbar’s Big Bad Manhattan in their Global Cocktail of the Week Feature.
From the article: “Snackbar’s creative beverage team frequently goes DIY, infusing liquors and bittering agents to broaden their playlist. To make the Big Bad Manhattan, Snackbar beverage director Drew Stevens created homemade bitters using freshly frizzled bacon snagged from the BBB pantry. And since this is a John Currence kitchen, there’s no such thing as basic bacon. This is tabasco and brown sugar bacon.”
Read more here.