sherry punch

2 1/4 oz Amontillado Sherry
3/4 oz Black Pepper Simple Syrup
1 dash Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

Stir with ice and strain (or scaled up in a punch bowl with a large ice chunk and ladled) into a punch cup. Garnish with pickled almonds on a skewer dusted with freshly cracked black pepper.
Last night we returned to Drink after being invited to a private event by John on Monday. We found seats at Ben Sandrof's bar and he offered us a cup of sherry punch. Andrea had tried this on Monday night as they were working out the recipe and she was rather willing to have it again. The punch was nutty with the pepper flavor arriving at the end. It was not overly dry like many Amontillados, but pleasantly sweetened due to the simple syrup. The garnish was rather funky -- the green almonds were pickled in a sweet bread and butter sort of style. The black pepper sprinkled on the almonds gave a good continuity between the punch and the garnish, but how you utilized the garnish and its extra flavors were up to the drinker. Sam Treadway, the bartender who came up with the recipe, stopped by as we were drinking the punch. Andrea commented that Monday's version was a lot more peppery and when Sam tasted it, he agreed. Sam thought that the punch last night was made closer to a 5:1 instead of the 3:1 ratio he devised (which is the recipe given above), or perhaps a new batch of pepper syrup was made which was a tad lighter on the spice.