barbara west

2 oz Dry Gin (Anchor Junipero)
1 oz Sherry (Lustau Don Nuño Dry Oloroso)
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1 small dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
For our last drink on Friday, I started flipping through the LUPEC Boston cocktail book for a use of the last of the freshly squeezed lemon juice I prepped for the Cold Ruby Punch. The Barbara West Cocktail stood out as one that we had never had and one that would also satisfy my hankering for a fortified wine cocktail. The recipe cited Ted Haigh's cocktail book as their source. Both books recommend an Amontillado sherry which we lack, so we opted for a dry Oloroso over the East India Solera sherry in our collection. While Ted recommends this drink as an apertif, we chose it to go with our dessert of Manouri cheese with local honey from a farm in Southborough, MA. The dryness of the sherry and of the recipe as a whole worked as a good cleanser for the sweetness of the dessert. It had a pleasing nuttiness from the sherry and a crispness from the gin's juniper and the lemon juice. The dry Oloroso sherry made for a Martini-like cocktail and seemed to be a good substitute for an Amontillado.