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.