Friday, January 25, 2019

interrobang‽

1/2 oz Armagnac (3/4 oz Larressingle Armagnac VSOP)
1/2 oz Benedictine (3/4 oz)
1/2 oz Cynar (3/4 oz)

Stir with ice, strain into a rocks glass, and garnish with a spritz of peated Scotch (Laphroaig 10 Year).

Two Fridays ago after my bar shift at work, I arrived home desperately in need of a nightcap. Therefore, I turned to Sother Teague's I'm Just Here for the Drinks book and honed in on his tribute to a punctuation mark, the Interrobang‽. The interrobang is a lesser known punctuation mark that signifies that a question is being expressed in an exclamatory way; its use often makes the issue almost sound like a rhetorical question in perhaps a scolding way. On Instagram, I inquired about the drink including the proportions, and Sother replied that it was his "favorite punctuation‽ ! Cheers! ... [it was a] typo in the book -- should all be 1 oz. Regardless, equal parts." I found the 1 1/2 oz build to be too small and upped it part way on my own before learning the preferred build. I was definitely interested in this recipe for Cynar and Benedictine work rather well in drinks like the 100 Year Old Cigar and Lighted Lamp, and I have tinkered with the duo in the Chachita and Year of the Dragon.
The Interrobang‽ greeted the nose with an iodine-peat smoke over herbal and vegetal aromas. Next, a caramel sip gave way to brandy, minty, chocolate, and herbal flavors on the swallow.

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