diablo (variant)

2 oz Rye
1/2 oz Cointreau
1/2 oz White Port
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

On Tuesday, Andrea and I went down to Rendezvous for dinner and to meet up with Tim and Jess (the creator of this blog) for drinks. I started with a Nehru with dinner and I asked the bartender, Scott Holliday, what he had been experimenting with lately. He mixed me this Diablo variant. The only comment was that he swapped the rum and dry vermouth for rye and white port, so the rest of the recipe above as well as the proportions are from barnonedrinks.com (it took a while to find the rum-based Diablo since there are several distinct cocktails with the same name). I have no clue if he used Cointreau or even has it at the bar so that and the rest is guesstimation. His substitution was intriguing as he swapped the spicy and smooth ingredients around. A spicy rye and a smooth white port instead of a smooth rum and a spicy vermouth. I think that the only other time I had a mixed drink with white port was in a white sangria. Standard ports used to be standards in mixed drinks including back in the time of Jerry Thomas; it is a pity that they and sherries are used less frequently by today's bartenders.