bourbon corpse reviver no. 2

3/4 oz Gin Bourbon
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz Lillet Blanc
3/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
2 dashes Herbsaint

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

For my last cocktail last night at Drink, I asked Sam to keep with the dark spirits and use Bourbon and I wanted him to use Pastis. Sam smiled and went to work. The bar was hitting a second wave of people by this point -- the industry crowd was filtering in -- so I missed some of the ingredients that he used. I did see the Lillet and the Herbsaint, but I did not see or ask what whiskey he used. The recipe above, save for the strikethrough, is copied from Chuck Taggart's site and may not perfectly reflect the drink I received. I assumed that Sam kept the proportions of this classic rather true to the recipe.

The swapping of the gin for a darker spirit added a richness that I have previously experienced in the Final Ward's use of rye in place of the Last Word's gin. The Bourbon did mask the Herbsaint and Lillet flavors a bit more than the gin version of the Corpse Reviver No. 2 would, so the focus of the drink was shifted slightly although not in a bad way.

My googling brought up an interesting article in Kaiser Penguin's blog discussing the Corpse Reviver No. 2. In the comment section, one guest wrote how the Twentieth Century Cocktail (gin, Lillet, lemon, light creme de cacao) which has some similarities to this Corpse Reviver was Bourbonfied into the Nineteenth Century Cocktail by Brian Miller (Pegu Club/Death & Co.) in a similar way. We might have to try the 19th Century at home some time...