tango #2 variation

1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Rum
1/2 oz Cynar
1/2 oz Orange Juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. See below for the original recipe.

After the "New Orleans Pharmacists" talk at Tales of the Cocktail on Thursday evening, we headed over to the Presbytere Museum for a cocktail event. The event started while we were at the talk so we only got to try 5 or 6 of the 39 cocktails being made that night by some of the more famous bartenders, authors, and bloggers around. And after that last Brandy Sazerac at the Pharmacists seminar, we did not exactly need to hit that many of the stations... The first drink I had was a Tango No. 2 variant made by Wayne Curtis who wrote And A Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. The original source of his recipe was the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book which lists the recipe as equal parts dry vermouth, sweet vermouth, rum, Benedictine, and orange juice. Wayne's substitution was to swap the Benedictine for Cynar and Angostura bitters. This Tango #2 variant reminded us a lot of a Monkey Gland (we later had one of those too at the Pernod tasting room on Friday) with less anise notes but just as much complexity. I would assume that the original Tango No. 2 would be a lot more gentle with Benedictine than Cynar plus Angostura, but either will make for a delightful cocktail especially since Benedictine pairs rather well with orange juice such as in the D.O.M. Cocktail.