[clovey rum]

2 oz Zacapa 23 Year Rum
1/2 oz Becherovka
1/4 oz Benedictine
2 dashes Bittermens Mole Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Twist a lemon peel over the top, rim the edge, and discard the peel.

For my second cocktail at Eastern Standard on Monday, I asked bartender Kevin Martin to stick with rum and gave him the freedom to create something new for me. To Kevin's choice of the rich and spicy Zacapa 23 rum, he added Becherovka and Benedictine liqueurs to make an intensely flavored rum old fashioned sort of drink. Kevin said his concept was a drink "warm with fall spice" and the clove and other botanicals in the Becherovka worked for this purpose quite well. I think the Becherovka overwhelmed the Benedictine and perhaps switching their volumes might have given the Benedictine more equal footing in this cocktail. But otherwise, this drink did serve as a good digestif to follow up my dinner.