nineteen twenty cocktail

1 1/2 oz Gin (North Shore Distillers #6)
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth (Dolin)
1/2 oz Kirsch (Trimbach)
1 dash Sirop de Groseille (1 barspoon, homemade)
1 dash Orange Bitters (Regan's)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

While at the Bols Genever release party, Christine of the Bostonist gifted me an aliquot of the Sirop de Groseille batch that she had just made. This syrup is a red currant one that is rather difficult to find outside of France so making it is practically a necessity (although many take the short cut of substituting grenadine). I am not sure of what recipe she used but CocktailDB provides this one; I do remember that she mentioned a few boiling steps in hers (Jerry Thomas' book provides one with a single boiling step). David Wondrich was in earshot of our conversation and it piqued his interest, and as a result, he was lucky enough to return home with a bottle as well.
While flipping through the Stan Jones Complete Bar Guide (which has been getting a lot of press lately), I spotted a tempting use of the Sirop de Groseille, the Nineteen Twenty Cocktail, which seemed fitting after having had the 1820 at the Bols Genever release party. Interesting was how some recipes in Jones' book, like the Artist's Special Cocktail, were listed as grenadine drinks instead of currant syrup ones, yet the Nineteen Twenty Cocktail remained as a Groseille one. The end product of this recipe was a dry Martini with hints of fruit from the Kirsch, orange bitters, and Groseille. The syrup took some of the edge off of the drink by providing a slight bit of sugar to the nearly bone dry recipe. There was a pleasantly intriguing mint-like flavor at the end of the swallow that we deduced was the lavender in the North Shore #6 gin's botanical blend. Overall, the Nineteen Twenty made for a great aperitif cocktail.