petition

3/4 oz Cachaça (Isaura Ouro 3 Year)
3/4 oz Benedictine
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Dry Vermouth (Dolin)
1/4 oz Simple Syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime twist.

For Mixoloseum's Thursday Drink Night this week, the spirit that called out to me was cachaça. For inspiration, I thought of the tasty Petion variant that I had at No. 9 Park a few months ago. The Petion uses a Haitian cane spirit called clarion which apparently is rather similar to cachaça. While I tweaked around with the proportions and swapped the rum for some dry vermouth to offset the cachaça's intensity, I kept the Benedictine and lime intact. The name I chose for the drink, the Petition, is a combination of a nod to the Petion and a reference to the entreaty launched by Leblon to legalize cachaça as its own spirit classification instead of being lumped in with rums.
The Petition cocktail had a fruity nose supplemented by the funky aroma of the cachaça. Meanwhile, the sip was full of spice from the bitters, Benedictine, and the aged cachaça which interacted rather well with the tart lime flavor. The drink was too dry at first, but became pretty reasonable after I added the quarter ounce of simple syrup to the mix; moreover, fans of sweeter drinks could up the simple syrup or perhaps change the vermouth to a bianco or sweet.