October 08/2017  Sausagefest Reviews

Even with a one year hiatus the sausagefest participants went back to the established practices they learned over the past 17 years:

• Bring great wine🍷
• Bring lots of great beer🍺
• Bring lots of good sausage🌭
• Wish for nice weather☀

While three of the variables are in human hands, the weather answered prayers,a cool early fall day gave way to a beautiful evening. Eighteen years of great weather, so you know it is an ordained event from on high.

By unofficial count the fest had 65 to 70 people, 35 bottles of wine consumed, 30 sausages grilled and more than 100 beers consumed. (We actually received more than 30 sausages but when the grill crew took a break at 6:30 with 30 sausages already served the cooking petered out.)

The first sausage was on the grill by tradition at 4:30. By some past standards, the attendance was a bit down but the wine and beer flow was still fully turned on.

Check out the Sausagefest Photo Gallery.

Richard Tuttle won another championship award for his Jamaican Jerk Chicken sausage. Richard had been in a prolonged slump in the last several years and it was good to see his creativity return despite his advanced age. Several people wanted to know where they could buy the sausage. While another veteran sausage goer had this insight, Richard re-discovered proportionality of seasoning makes a difference.

Chuck & Nancy Rizzo get the award for Culinary Creativity. This award is not an annual award but is awarded to the chef who goes above and beyond to bring a food item to Sausagefest that has great quality but that is not necessarily an encased meat.

When Chuck and Nancy get into the cooking mode there is no messing around. They have won multiple SausageFest Championships for their homemade sausages. (Their Chili Sausage being a recent winner.) This year they went to a French classic dish: homemade rillettes. The pate melted in your mouth and went with both red and white wine.

Steve Zimmerman, a first time Sausagefest attendee, discovered a Wisconsin butcher who makes Bison sausage with a great name: Black and Bleu Bison Brat. What a huge hit. The flavor was huge, seasonings perfect, but there just wasnt enough for the demand. If you want to try some of these wonderful sausages, head to Salem, Wisconsin and find Lester’s Bison Farm. Salem is about midway between Lake Geneva and Kenosha on route 50.

Sausagefest 18 was a big hit because of all the team work we get from family and friends. Many thanks to: Kathy, Kristen, Alan, Richie, Mark, Ty, Mike, Steve, and Kellen Kleiva who was inserted into Sausage Grill Scheduler and did a masterful job.

If you want to see a small sample of sausages that you missed, the list below has some very good sausages. We hope you can get to these sausage artist stores and support their work.