seelbach redux

1 oz. Bulliet bourbon
1/2 oz. Cointreau
3ish dashes Angostura bitters
3ish dashes Peychaud's bitters
top off with a few oz. Cava (PDT uses Moët)

On Monday, Fred had a DJing gig at An Tua Nua (the front room of which was filled with enthusiastic and polite, but ultimately disappointed, Philadelphia Eagles fans). So afterwards, we hit Eastern Standard to experience courteous service done the NYC way. As Fred has already written, Mr. Daniel Eun from Please Don't Tell was participating in a bartender exchange, and we were eager to try some new flavors in our cocktails. But first, I decided to see how Mr. Eun did with an old favorite.

PDT's take on the Seelbach is definitely on the lighter side, though still flavorful. This one was also the driest of the Seelbachs I've tried. Mr. Eun let the ice melt for quite a while (I wondered if they have slower ice cubes at PDT - our drinks that night were much more heavily watered than those to which I've become accustomed) ; combined with the much lighter hand with the bitters, it certainly made for a less challenging drink than a standard Seelbach. Still, quite enjoyable.

On a note having nothing to do with cocktails (directly) - I definitely felt transported back in time a bit during my visit. Mr. Eun wore a gorgeous victorian-inspired shawl-collared wool waistcoat. He looked perfect with ES's old fashioned bar as a backdrop. Alas, I didn't even think to take any pictures.

dewey d

2 oz Rittenhouse Rye
3/4 oz Lustau East India Sherry
1/2 oz Aperol
1 dash Boker's Bitters (*)
1 dash Nasturtium Bitters (*)
Orange peel
Stir with ice and strain into a coupette glass. Rub rim with orange peel, twist peel over glass, and drop in.
(*) Usually this drink is made with 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters.

Last night, Andrea and I stopped in to Eastern Standard to have guest bartender Daniel Eun from Manhattan's Please Don't Tell make us some cocktails. Luckily, when we walked in, there were two seats open at the bar right in front of his station. Daniel greeted us instantly and remembered our names from the night before. I requested a drink with rye and bitter liqueurs and asked him if that gave him any ideas and the Dewey D is what he came back with. The bitters he used were the ones I have written about here which I had just given to Jackson shortly after sitting down. It was pretty entertaining to watch both Daniel and Jackson dropping dashes of bitters into their palms, rubbing their hands together, and covering their face like a gas mask to soak the aromas in.

The cocktail itself was rather tasty. The sherry and Aperol go splendidly together and are complemented by the orange oils in the drink. The web tells me that PDT usually use Old Overholdt in this drink, but the spicier nature of the Rittenhouse work well in the drink where it mingle with the bitters.

Ever since we read the article in SfGate about the return of vermouths as major components of cocktails, Andrea has been saying that ports, sherries, and madeiras would be the next big wave of old cocktail reagents to return. And it seems that Mr. Eun, from this drink and others that we watched him mix last night, is riding the beginnings of this this wave into shore.

phoenix down

2 oz Applejack (Laird's Bonded)
3/8 oz Honey Syrup (3/4 oz)
3/8 oz Ginger Syrup (3 thin slice Ginger)
3/4 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice (muddle ginger slices in the honey syrup, add the rest, and shake with ice), and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a spritz of absinthe (St. George) and candied ginger on a pick (omit).Two Sundays ago, I reached for Eric Alperin's Unvarnished book and headed to the recipe section in the middle. There, I was tempted by a house recipe, namely Daniel Eun's apple brandy riff on Sam Ross' Pencillin using absinthe as the floater instead of a smoky spirit. Eun's Phoenix Down began with an anise and licorice nose. Next, lemon and honey on the sip slid into apple and ginger on the swallow.

[nightcap a la daniel eun]

1 oz Averna
1 oz Campari
1/2 oz Punt e Mes
1/2 oz Martini & Rossi Sweet Vermouth
Flamed Orange Peel

Stirred with ice, flavored with the flamed orange peel, and strained into cordial shot glasses.

Hugh Fiore ended our evening at Eastern Standard by pouring Tim, Andrea, and I a round of a nightcap sipper that Daniel Eun of Please Don't Tell taught him how to make. The original recipe would require two parts of a Chinato, a quinine-containing aromatic full-bodied red wine. Since Chinato is hard to come by in Massachusetts (although Jackson did say earlier in the night that they might have it at the bar soon!), a substitution of half sweet vermouth and half Punt e Mes was used.

The only other nightcap that has come close to this drink was Eastern Standard's Kevin Martin pouring us a round of Little Italy (2 oz rye, 1/2 oz Cynar, 3/4 oz sweet vermouth) a little over a year ago.

don's little bitter

1/8 oz Peychaud's Bitters
1/8 oz Angostura Orange Bitters
1/4 oz Angostura Bitters
1/2 oz Fernet Branca
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Simple Syrup
1 oz Barbancourt 8 Year Rum

Shake with ice and double strain into a coupe glass.

For my second cocktail at Drink on Monday night, bartender Sam Treadway lured me into having Don's Little Bitter by describing its bitter-laden recipe. Sam was originally served this drink after he had a big dinner at Sportello. When he went downstairs to Drink, he asked guest bartender Don Lee for something to help settle his stomach after his feast. Don Lee at the time was working at P.D.T (and now Momofuko Ssam Bar) in Manhattan, and I do not recall if his visit was a simple one way transaction or a bartender exchange like Eastern Standard's Kevin Martin did with P.D.T.'s Daniel Eun around a year and a half ago.

The drink Don Lee made for Sam had a walloping dose of three "nonpotable" bitters -- Angostura, Orange, and Peychaud's bitters -- and a sizable amount of a potable one -- Fernet Branca. One recipe I have seen online lists the nonpotable bitters as double what I was served (1/4 oz Peychaud's, 1/4 oz Orange, 1/2 oz Angustura), and my guess would be that the recipe was trimmed down to fit to Drink's standard 3 oz pre-ice melt volume. To round out the drink were the ingredients to a basic Rum Sour: Barbancourt rum, lemon juice, and simple syrup.
The drink ended up a magnificent deep red color mainly from the Angostura Bitters with additional help from the Peychaud's and Fernet Branca; I place a higher degree of blame on the Angostura Bitters as the hue reminded me a lot of the Trinidad Sour that Ben Sandrof made me. While I got a cherry-lemon nose on the Don's Little Bitter, Andrea perceived an "orangy spice... [that] smells like hippy tea." The sip proved to be the delicious bittered and tannic Sour as expected with a clove-like note and Fernet Branca flavors on the swallow. Just like Andrea's description of the nose, the drink was filled with orange and spice flavors from the orange bitters mixing with the other ingredients.

puentes

1/2 English Gin (1 1/2 oz Seagram's)
1/2 Dry Vermouth (1 1/2 oz Noilly Prat)
1 tsp Chartreuse (1/4 oz Green)
1 Orange Peel

Shake with ice (stir) and strain into a cocktail glass. I garnished with an orange twist.

Two Mondays ago, I reached for the 1927 Cuban El Arte de Hacer un Cocktail y Algo Mas that was translated cover to cover into English by Mixellany to The Art of Making a Cocktail. There, I spotted the Puentes which translates into Bridges that reminded me more of a tunnel drink, namely Kevin Martin's Albert Mathieu that he created at Eastern Standard and took with him in 2008 on a bartender exchange with PDT (we got Daniel Eun for a few nights!). Or perhaps this recipe comes closest to a much more balanced and more Dry Martini variation of the Bijou. The orange peel in the mixing tin is very parallel with the orange bitters that color the Bijou; I am not sure if a light muddling and stirring accomplished the same as shaking with ice though.
The Puentes began like it ended with orange notes here on the nose. A clean wine sip gave way to juniper and Green Chartreuse herbal notes in a balanced sort of way all with an orange peel finish.

number 8

Barenjager
Madeira
Tequila
Orange bitters

Stirred with ice, garnished with a large-ish lemon peel.

Update: The recipe from the PDT Cocktail Book is as follows:
• 2 oz Don Julio Reposado Tequila
• 3/4 oz Lustau Palo Cortado Sherry
• 1/2 oz Bärenjäger Honey Liqueur
• 2 dash Orange Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

For my second drink of the evening at Pacific Daylight Time, err, I mean Eastern Standard, I asked Mr. Eun to make me a tequila-based cocktail. I had already spotted him making several Number 8s over the course of the evening, and it definitely intrigued me. I regret that I didn't get the proportions (and was a tad too shy to ask him for them). The cocktail was quite complex in flavor, and not cloyingly sweet at all, given the honey liqueur. The smokiness of the tequila was accented nicely by the Madeira. I certainly applaud the use of more sherries, ports, and madeiras - vermouth's been getting all the love lately.

I'd call the bartender exchange a smashing success. The drinks that Fred and I sampled (I *loved* the Mariner that Fred got) were nice changes for our palates. Hopefully more of the Boston-area bartenders will be willing to mix up some new flavors. I haven't really been involved with the cocktail scene for very long, but it seems like this fall is a time of great upheaval in Boston's bars - old, beloved places shutting down (B-Side), new hotshots on the move (Craigie on Main), and a sea-change in the bespoke cocktail (Drink). Change is good. I'll drink to that.

normandie club collins

1 1/2 oz Beefeater Gin
1/2 oz Amaro Montenegro
3/4 oz Strawberry Syrup (*)
3/4 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top with soda water and garnish with a lemon wheel (omitted here).
(*) Muddling a medium-large strawberry in 3/4 oz simple syrup will substitute in a pinch.
One of the next drinks I had at the Bartender's Breakfast was the Collins from the Normandie Club in Los Angeles. The recipe was attributed to bartenders Devon Tarby and Daniel Eun, though this one was made for me by bartender Daniel Warrilow. I was definitely excited about the strawberry-Amaro Montenegro combination for it worked rather well in the Gulistan.
The Collins greeted the nose with a lemon aroma. Next, the sip was very berry flavored with crisp lemon and carbonation to give it structure, and the swallow then offered gin and orange-tangerine notes from the Amaro Montenegro.

ewing no. 33

Appleton Estate VX rum
Fernet-Branca
Brown sugar syrup
Ricard
Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. My guesstimation of proportions is below. EDIT: The recipe from Food & Wine: Cocktails 2008 is below that.

Last night, Andrea and I went to Green Street for drinks. Shortly before ordering our first cocktails, Eastern Standard's Jackson Cannon sat down next to us and introduced us to Daniel Eun from Please Don't Tell who is here in town as part of an ES-PDT exchange program. This exchange starts today and runs until Wednesday, so we might stop in after I am done DJing tonight to have a drink made by Daniel. Although the experience will lack the speakeasy feel of entering PDT...

The Ewing no. 33 is a drink created by Dylan Black, the owner of Green Street. My sports fan friends would chuckle that I ordered a drink named after a sports star (some of my friends are "amused" that I criticize home teams for their screwing up commutes, crowding bars, usurping parking, and the like, and not for rooting for another team). The drink itself is a medium-bodied rum sweetened with simple syrup to bolster against the herbal phalanx of the Fernet and Angostura. From my web searching, I have only discovered that the original concept was a Ricard rinse; however, Misty added it as a dash to the mixing cup which is fine since it generally comes out tasting the same. The pastis adds some great flavor highlights to the drink very reminiscent of the late 1800's trend of adding an absinthe dash that I wrote about yesterday.

If I would have to guess proportions, I would estimate 1 1/2 oz rum, 1/2 oz Fernet-Branca, 1/2 oz of a 1:1 brown sugar simple syrup, 1/4 tsp Ricard (or a rinse), and 1 dash Angostura.

Ewing No. 33
• 2 oz Amber Rum
• 1/2 oz Fernet Branca
• 1/4 oz Spiced Brown Sugar Syrup (*)
• 1 dash Angostura
Stir on ice and strain into a coupe glass pre-rinsed with pastis. Garnish with a lime wedge.

(*) 8 oz water, 1 cup dark brown sugar, 1 star anise pod, 2 allspice berries. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool, strain, and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

"Dylan Black doesn't invent many cocktails for his Cambridge restaurant, but he decided that basketball great Patrick Ewing, who grew up within blocks of Green Street, deserved one. Black uses Jamaican rum to honor Ewing's island birthplace, Kingston."

:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2016 (in) ::

I will complete my seventh annual trilogy of year end wrap up posts by picking out the best recipes we tried at our home bar this year. Given my schedule of working nights, I find myself having the home bar as the only drinking option available, so I definitely have put a bit more focus on my closest and dearest bar with my posts. This list is dedicated to the best recipes created by bartenders, living, deceased, and unknown, from around the world all brought to me at my home bar (where luckily there is no last call).

January: There were two really good drinks that I made from Lost Lake in Chicago with their eponymous Lost Lake that came across like a Jungle Bird meets a Mary Pickford getting top nod for the month. Two soda water lightened drinks got my attention as well including the Vatican City from Mikki Kristola of L.A.'s The Varnish (that influenced by Italian Stallion) and Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars' West Indies Fizz.

February: I definitely enjoyed the brandy Diamondback riff, the Sidewinder, from Death & Co. Cocktail Book. Also of note were the Periodista-feeling Shipwreck Daiquiri from Tiki Drinks: Tropical Cocktails for the Modern Bar and the elegant pineapple-tinged Martini, the Madame Lou, from Boothby's 1934 World Drinks & How to Mix Them (which helped to name my Queen of the Lava Beds for V-Day at work that month).
March: My pick for March was Zac Overman's Angostura Colada from Fort Defiance that took the classic into funky rum and winter spice land. Runners up were two drinks that I have should have tried long before, namely Milk & Honey's Bensonhurst Manhattan riff and Don the Beachcomber's Three Dots and a Dash.

April: I really enjoyed the Daiquiri variation given my ingredient choices and recipe interpretation of the Westward from Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars. The split spirit-based Harvest Moon by Daniel Eun via The PDT Cocktail Book and the ginger-spiced Daiquiri, the Snow White, were definitely good recipes in April.

May: A lot of good choices, but the fact that I made All Jacked Up by Jordan Brower of Mayahuel twice by accident should be symbolic. I was also impressed by Bravo Zulu as Vincent Toscano's Bacardi Legacy recipe and Phil Ward's Baltasar & Blimunda from the Death & Co. Cocktail Book. While not necessarily a recipe runner up, my garnish from Trader Vic's Tortuga is the photo below.
June: Another tough month, but I still remember enjoying Frank Caiafra's Frida from the updated Waldorf Astoria Bar Book a lot especially with the raspberry-Chartreuse combination. Garret Richard's Yacht Rock from NYC's Slowly Shirley and Giuseppe Gonzalez's quirky Magic Julep were also rather tasty.

July: Even with a week away from the home bar due to Tales of the Cocktail, there were still a bounty of choices. Not only did I love Nick Detrich's Absent Stars from Cane & Table at my home bar, but I also make it for certain guests at work. Also noteworthy were a Tiki duo -- one old and one new -- of Trader Vic's tequila Ponche and Lost Lake's Fog Cutter variation.

August: I am rather pleased with my purchase of the Smuggler's Cove book and the Martin Cate's Shudders in a Whisper is a good reason why. Davey Jones' Locker by Brad Farran as a Daiquiri tinged by Don's Mix and Fernet was rather good, as was the classic that I should have written about sooner, namely the Applejack Rabbit from 1928's Here's How Again.
September: It was hard ordering these three, but I'll give the honors to a Crusta, namely rye-Cynar-mint Pie-O-My by Brynn Smith of L.A.'s Sotto. Continuing on with the mint was a delightful Brazilian number from Charles H. Baker Jr.'s The South American Gentleman's Companion with the Bee's Knees-White Lady mashup, the Bahia Busy Bee. The final slot was a toss up between two beasts of flavor with the nod going to Rafa Garcia Febles' Young Marble Giants tribute, Colossal Youth (the other was the Shattered Glasser, by the way).

October: I was really impressed by the recipes I made in Lou Bustamante's Complete Cocktail Manual, and I selected the Shark God of Molokai by Andrew Dolinsky of Cleveland Heath in St. Louis as October's pick. A brandy Brooklyn-Creole mashup from Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars called the Benediction was delightful as was the Luau from The PDT Cocktail Book.
November: Martin Cate's aquavit-driven Port of Göteborg was not one from his book but one published on Facebook, but it was worthy of mention. Secondly, the agave Midnight Bouquet from Meaghan Dorman of Manhattan's Raines and light but flavorful Pimm's-Tiki The Isle of Fawkes from Brian Maxwell of the Grass Skirt Tiki Room & the Side Bar both in a Columbus, Ohio, deserve note.

December: Somehow the combination of Scotch, raspberry, and lemon was magical in the Devery Crusta from Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars. Also of note were Sother Teague's room temperature Black Rock Chiller from The Cocktail Chronicles that astounds me at how well it works, and the Sherry Cobbler from the Canon Cocktail Book (if you can source Paxtxaran that is).

I do want to tip the hat to Sasha Petrashe: Regarding Cocktails and Brad Parson's Amaro book that had great drinks that sadly got nudged on certain months.

the mariner

2 oz Scotch
1/2 oz Smoked cardamom simple syrup
1/4 oz Pineapple juice
1/4 oz Lemon juice
Lemon peel
Stir with ice in a rocks glass. Twist a lemon peel over the drink and drop in glass.

For my second and last drink last night at Eastern Standard, guest bartender Daniel Eun from Please Don't Tell took my suggestion of sticking with whiskeys and made me this drink. While I am not a big Scotch fan [1], the Mariner had enough other flavors to distract me from this. I regret now not asking which Scotch he used, but Andrea thought that the label read 'Asbach' or similar (?). John Deragon of PDT wrote in eGullet that they use Compass Box Oak Cross for their version.

The Mariner was a good pairing with the cheese plate I was eating with the whiskey and the smoke-cardamom simple syrup flavors playing nicely with the 3 cheeses on the menu last night. The juices gave an interesting effect in being minor ingredients instead of dominant ones. While the recipe seems like it would be rather heavy, it was not perhaps due to the ice melt or due to the simple syrup smoothing out the flavors.

[1] At a recent Scotch tasting event I went to, I discovered that it was the peat flavor that I do not like. My favorite that night was the less peaty Dalwhinnie which someone jokingly told me was "a lady's scotch".

harvest moon

1 1/2 oz Wild Turkey Rye (Rittenhouse)
1 oz Lillet Blanc (Cocchi Americano)
1/2 oz Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy
1/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3 dash Abbott's Bitters (Housemade)

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
Two Fridays ago after my evening's shift, I was in the mood for a nightcap. For a selection, I turned to my picked-over but not yet completed P.D.T. Cocktail Book for a recipe. The one that caught my eye was Daniel Eun's circa 2007 Harvest Moon. Daniel described how the drink looks like the sky "during the harvest moon -- when the reddish-orange moon rises after sunset." Once stirred and strained, the Harvest Moon offered an orange, apple, and herbal bouquet to the nose. On the palate, a citrussy wine sip led into a bounty of complex flavor on the swallow including rye, apple, herbal, and clovey spice.

coda

1 oz Ron Pampero Aniversario Rum (Plantation 5 Year Barbados)
1 oz Neisson Rhum Blanc (JM Rhum Blanc)
1 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1/2 oz Demerara Syrup (Jaggery)
1 Whole Egg

Shake once without ice and once with. Strain into a Fizz glass and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.
Two Fridays ago for the cocktail hour, I made Daniel Eun's Coda from the PDT Cocktail Book which appeared like a delightful spiced Daiquiri Flip. The Coda's nutmeg garnish contributed a pleasing level of spice that prepared the palate for the drink's swallow. The sip was full of creamy lime and caramel notes, and the swallow began with grassy rum flavors and ended with lingering allspice accents.

sargasso

2 oz Aged Rhum Agricole (JM Gold)
3/4 oz Lustau East India Solera Sherry
1/2 oz Aperol
2 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with an orange twist.Two Wednesdays ago, I came across the recipe for the Sargasso that I had made just before I had started writing for the blog here in June of 2008, so it never got entered on my LiveJournal; therefore, I decided to give it another spin 14 years later and finally post it. The drink was created by Don Lee at PDT in Manhattan, and it placed second in the 3rd annual Rhum Clement's Cocktail Challenge in 2008. The combination was very similar to the rye-based Dewey D that Daniel Eun of PDT made for us at his guest shift at Eastern Standard in September 2008. Perhaps the Lustau East India Solera Sherry-Aperol duo was a popular motif at that bar back then. In my revisit, the Sargasso put forth an orange and grassy aroma. Next, grape and orange notes on the sip floated by grassy, funky rhum, berry, and orange flavors on the swallow.

trinidad sour

1 1/2 oz Angostura Bitters
1 1/2 oz Ferrara Orgeat
1 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Rittenhouse Rye

Shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass. And yes, those are the correct volumes (Update: close, see below).

Trinidad Sour (via Giuseppe Gonzalez)
• 1 1/2 oz Angostura Bitters
• 1 oz Orgeat
• 3/4 oz Lemon Juice
• 1/2 oz Rye Whiskey<
Source: Liquor.com & Punch. The former has a lemon twist and the latter has no garnish.

For my second cocktail at Drink last night, the honorable Ben Sandrof came by to chat. We began speaking about how much bitters you could drink straight without getting sick and then how much you could put in a cocktail and still have it work. Excluding some of the sweeter bitters out there like Fee's or Stirrings, the most I have ever seen was in the Woodpecker, a drink I left off of our menu at the International Migratory Bird Day cocktail party where we served bird-inspired cocktails, due what seemed like an absurd recipe:

Woodpecker
• 2 oz Vodka
• 15 dashes Angostura (or Peychaud's) Bitters
Serve with 4 ice cubes or with crushed ice in a rocks glass.

Ben countered that he had two cocktails that he thought I might like to change or at least challenge my mind. The one I went with was a sour created by Giuseppe Gonzales of the Clover Club in Brooklyn and brought to Ben by way of Daniel Eun. Well not just a sour, but an inversion of a standard sour recipe such that the rye, which you would assume is the base spirit, becomes the flavor enhancer, and the bitters instead of being the accent become the drink's base. One of the pleasures of Ben's bartending is that while he can conjure up and serve perfectly regular drinks, he will gladly throw in a level of perversity if you are game, and accepting the perversity gauntlet often pays off grandly. For example, one of the most memorable drinks I had at No. 9 Park was a 1794 cocktail that Ben made for me with some xanthum gum-thickened Campari (almost a jelly) that yielded a cocktail with a rather fun and full mouthfeel to it. I figured that this would be a drink bold enough to match the Scotch Sazerac I had just finished.
I was in utter awe when the drink appeared in front of me. It was rather red with a thick froth on top. On the nose of the drink, there was a great deal of cinnamon, spice, and almond/orgeat aromatics. Upon the first sip, it was surprisingly very citrusy with more of a lime taste to it due to something in the bitters modifying the lemon's flavor. The ounce and a half of Angostura bitters a priori sounds like a disaster and my mind had a preconceived opinion of the flavor profile. However, it worked in a very delicious way, and not only that but the cherry wood in the Angostura's botanical mix brought out a great cherry-fruit flavor. Lauren Clark of DrinkBoston was at the ice bar behind me and Ben made her one as well. Lauren said she initially attributed the cherry flavor to her mind tricking her into thinking the drink was cherryish due to its incredible red color a la cherry juice. Over all, I was quite pleased with this drink both as an experience and as a drink itself. It was indeed an intense cocktail but very different type of intense from my Ardbeg Sazerac.

albert mathieu

1 1/2 oz Plymouth Gin (Cold River)
3/4 oz Lillet Blanc (Cocchi Americano)
3/4 oz Green Chartresue
1 barspoon St. Germain (1/8 oz)
1 dash Regan's Orange Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
After the Zumbo, I started perusing the PDT Cocktail Book and spotted the Albert Mathieu. The drink was created by Eastern Standard's own Kevin Martin and we wondered for a second how this drink got there. Then we realize that this was part of the missing link! Back in 2008, there was a New York City-Boston bartender exchange organized by Philip Ward and subsidized by Rob Cooper of St. Germain in terms of travel and lodging expenses. While we lent out Kevin for a few days, we got a chance to taste New York by acquiring PDT's Daniel Eun for a three night stint at Eastern Standard. Both Andrea and I wrote about the drinks we had including their Dewey D, Mariner, and Number 8, and we quite enjoyed the experience of mixology travel without leaving the city. We never bothered to ask Kevin what he made; instead, we heard tales of what it was like to work with Kold-Draft Ice before the technology took off here and how New Yorkers prefer their drinks a bit stiffer and less diluted than imbibers do in Boston. The cocktail of Kevin's that got in the drink book perfectly symbolized the cross pollination. Albert Mathieu was a French mining engineer who in 1802 first proposed a tunnel to span the English Channel. While the idea which included horse-power, oil lamps, and the like was too daunting in the 19th century, the concept later came to fruition in 1994 when the Chunnel connected the two countries. Moreover, the combination of French and English ingredients in the recipe rounded out the affair.
The Albert Mathieu's nose presented an herbal burst from the Green Chartreuse that was brightened by the orange oils from the twist. While the sip was light, sweet, and citrussy, the swallow packed a potent combination of the gin and Green Chartreuse. Furthermore, the St. Germain's floral notes worked well with the Chartreuse at the end of the drink. Overall, the Albert Mathieu was akin to a gin instead of Bourbon Endeavor or a Lillet instead of sweet vermouth Bijou.

south of sunset

1 1/2 oz Plymouth Gin (Tanqueray)
3/4 oz Aperol
3/4 oz Lustau East India Solera Sherry

Stir with ice, strain into a rocks glass with ice, and garnish with a lemon twist.
Two Saturdays ago, I wandered into my Food & Wine: Cocktails collection and extracted the 2016 edition. There, I spotted Los Angeles bartender Karen Grill's Negroni variation called the South of Sunset. What drew me to the combination was how it was reminiscent of Daniel Eun's Dewey D but with gin instead of whiskey and aromatic bitters. In the glass, the South of Sunset cast off lemon and orange aromas. Next, the sherry donated a gorgeous grape note that went along with a fruity one from the Aperol on the sip, and the swallow followed up with gin joined by bitter orange blending into grape on the swallow.