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Since hearing about it almost 20 years ago on the WONDERFUL PBS documentary Sandwiches You Will Like, the Kentucky Hot Brown has always been on my bucket list. And every few months like clockwork, an article comes out about it:

The hot brown is many things: a celebration of place; a simple dish elevated by a derivative of one of the mother sauces of classic French cuisine; a culinary fascination. But many believe the exact recipe for the hot brown has changed in the nearly 100 years since it was first created, with the details differing even among Brown Hotel employees.

What works in 1926 works a century later, too. In an episode of the PBS show The Mind of a Chef, chefs David Chang and Sean Brock make a hot brown amidst discussion of a night of drinking. “I think we were in agreement that whoever invented it was drunk, or was cooking it for drunk people,” Chang jokes.

While it may have originated as a late-night drunk food, it’s also plenty popular with more sober guests: The Brown Hotel sells an average of 1,000 hot brown sandwiches per week, and on Derby weekend, it sells that number in just three days. “At any given time we could be serving 100 people and 90 of the orders will be hot browns,” says Adams.

Do yourself a favor and watch the Sandwiches doc, which I've referenced many times here over the years. Including, of course, the time I made one of them myself.