chrysanthemum cocktail

2 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1 oz Benedictine
3 dash Absinthe (1/2 barspoon Pastis d'Autrefois)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
On Sunday night, Andrea said that she wanted something vermouthy so I started flipping through our cocktail books. One that I spotted in the Food and Wine: Cocktails 2008 book was the Chrysanthemum Cocktail lifted from the 1930 edition of the Savoy Cocktail Book. Merging the histories from the two books, the drink was very popular on the S.S. "Europa" which was one of the great trans-Atlantic liners that carried cocktail-deprived Americans to Europe during Prohibition. The first notes in tasting this cocktail were the citrus flavors which work rather well with the vermouth. With the Benedictine liqueur's sugar content, the dry vermouth almost tasted like sweet vermouth and made Andrea think that the drink "tastes like candy". The drink's swallow was completed with the absinthe/pastis flavors pleasantly rolling in. The Chrysanthemum Cocktail was a delightful lower-in-alcohol drink which would serve as a good way to burn through your vermouth before it goes off with age.