The Award-Winning Boozy Pie Baked Fresh In Connecticut

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Pie is serious business. So serious, in fact, that Chowhound made it a point to narrow down the best pies in every U.S. state based on customer reviews, awards, and media coverage. The final list is chock-full of pies worth traveling for, but one in particular had us salivating over the sheer indulgence of its ingredients: The award-winning chocolate pecan bourbon pie from Michele's Pies in Norwalk, Connecticut.

We're no strangers to pairing bourbon and chocolate; in fact, adding a splash of the booze is a fantastic way to amp up the flavor of your brownies. Adding pecans to that combination — and in pie form, to boot — is essentially a siren song in dessert form, a temptation so powerful that the mere thought of tasting it has us packing our bags for Connecticut. That the store's pies are all handmade and baked fresh on the day just makes it all the more enticing.

The pie's quality isn't just speculative, either. Michele Stuart, the founder of Michele's Pies, won her first-ever National Pie Championship with her chocolate pecan bourbon pie, and would go on to win a whopping 50 more first place awards in the years since. Reviews online rave about how rich and chocolatey it is, and how gooey the filling is. So if you're on the hunt for the best pie in Connecticut, this signature dessert from Michele's Pies definitely has a claim to that title.

One of the main reasons Michele Stuart's chocolate pecan bourbon pie works so well is the way all three of the major ingredients harmonize together. Chocolate, for instance, has a mild bitterness that tempers the bourbon's sweetness and warmth. The difference in textures between the gooey chocolate and crunchy pecans, on the other hand, creates what scientists refer to as a dynamic contrast, which essentially means that our brains are rewarding us for the variety in mouthfeel.

When it comes to nuts, pecans are among the highest in fat content, second only to macadamias. This not only gives them their buttery flavor, but also enhances the flavor of other ingredients by dissolving and carrying their aromatic compounds. At the same time, the fat makes the dessert feel richer and creamier by coating your tongue. These flavors and textures play really well with chocolate and with the caramel notes you'll find in bourbon, which in turn balances the sweetness of pecan pie with its complexity.

Lastly, bourbon contains vanillin, the compound responsible for vanilla's most notable flavors. The vanillin is actually absorbed from the charred oak barrels that bourbon is required by law to age in; the charring causes lignin molecules in the wood to undergo certain chemical processes that produce vanillin, which is then absorbed by the bourbon. The flavors from vanillin help the chocolate taste creamier and sweeter, while also tempering its bitterness and acidity. The vanillin also contains mild floral notes that complement the pecans' richness and earthiness.

While you can have the dessert delivered to you straight from Michele's Pies via Goldbelly, you can also try to save a few bucks and make it yourself. Michele Stuart actually shared the recipe for her famous chocolate pecan bourbon pie in her 2011 cookbook, "Perfect Pies," and gave a few publications her permission to publish it online, too.

There's a catch, however — the recipe is widely available to the public, but the exact bourbon Stuart uses for her recipe isn't. The problem lies in the fact that different bourbons can vary wildly in flavor; a high rye bourbon, for example, has more spice in its flavor profile, while a sour mash bourbon will taste sweeter than most other types. You can technically customize the recipe according to your tastes — you'd probably even be able to get away with using bottom-shelf bourbons that are surprisingly worth buying — but there's a big chance you won't be able to perfectly replicate Stuart's award-winning recipe without knowing what specific bourbon she uses.

And that's without taking into consideration the fact that Stuart is a very skilled baker compared to the average home cook — she does it for a living, after all. Some people can follow recipes word for word and still end up with a pie that didn't set properly. Depending on how handy you are in the kitchen, you might save yourself a lot of grief by just having the pie delivered. Or better yet, you could always just plan a trip to Connecticut and squeeze in meals at a few other notable spots, like the first restaurant in U.S. history to sell burgers.