In 1947 William H. Robertson, Sr. had just returned to his home in Finchville, Kentucky after serving in World War II. In a small rural town of 200, job opportunities were few at the time, so he decided to try and sell the sugar-cured country ham his family had been since before the Civil War. The first year he cured 100 hams and sold them in the Finchville Post Office where he was the Postmaster.
Things took off from there — he started shipping his hams from that same Post Office, beginning a mail order business whose early wholesale customers included the L&N Railroad and the Executive Inn Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky. Today, Finchville Farms is operated by the second and third generation of the Robertson family, and the hams are still cured and processed using the same recipe from 1947.
In an age of fast food and artificial preservatives, these country hams are cured with only salt, peppers and brown sugar — all natural ingredients used throughout the world for centuries to preserve food before refrigeration. All Finchville hams are hand-rubbed with their old time sugar cure and left to fully age for a year, never using nitrates or nitrites like “quick-cure” hams.
Finchville Farms Country Hams has won the Kentucky State Fair Grand Championship many times over the years. The New York Times and other magazines have written articles on the company and highly recommended the hams to their readers. As we enter a new century, in the quaint town of Finchville there is still a small family owned business curing country hams the old-fashioned way.