smoking hand

3/4 oz Highland Scotch (Deveron 12 Year) (*)
3/4 oz Islay Scotch (Caol Ila 12 Year) (*)
3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth (Cocchi)
3/4 oz Campari
3 dash Bittermens Mole Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with a cherry.
(*) I only had the ingredients list, so I utilized the related Tres Hands with tequila and mezcal as my model. Adjust the ratios of the two according to taste and whisky choice.

Two Sundays ago, I returned to Sasha Petraske's Regarding Cocktails and came upon the entry for the Right Hand. In the description were its siblings, and the only one that I had not made was the Smoking Hand with Scotch for I could not find a recipe for it. Therefore, I improvised instead and used the Tres Hands as my recipe model with its equal parts nonsmoky and smoky spirit split. To balance that, I opted for a less intense Islay, namely Caol Ila, to work well here and not overwhelm my Highland Scotch. The Hand series was described by Sam Ross, but he did not attribute the creators of these less famous Milk & Honey classics.The Smoking Hand met the nose with a peat smoke aroma before heading into a grape and malt sip. Next, smoky and briny Scotch flavors were joined by bitter orange ones on the swallow and followed by a chocolate and smoke finish.