roxbury russet

1 oz Cognac
1/2 oz Laird's Applejack
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Honey Syrup
4 dash Fee's Aromatic Bitters
3-4 slice Apple (~1/6 medium apple)
4 Cloves

Muddle cloves. Add apple slices and muddle again. Add rest of ingredients and ice, shake, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an additional apple slice.

For my second cocktail at The Gallows on Sunday night, I asked bartender Carl Donheiser about another drink on the menu, but after talking with him, he steered me toward the Roxbury Russet. The Roxbury Russet was Carl's creation and the least darkly named drink of the three I had. Not named after a blood sucking beast or a sinning Puritan who was severely punished, the drink refers to an apple varietal believed to be the oldest apple cultivar grown in this country. The varietal was started about a mile or two away from the bar in Roxbury (now a suburb of Boston) in the seventeenth century.
The Roxbury Russet cocktail started with an autumnal aroma of clove and apples. The clove continued on in the sip to spice a sweet apple, lemon, and honey flavor. The cloves along with the cinnamon and other botanicals in the bitters appeared in the swallow and helped to dry out the sip. Indeed, Carl had described this drink as elegant and light, and that was pretty accurate. The cloves were the breakthrough ingredient for him in this recipe and their effect was rather stunning. Shortly before he served this drink to me, he made a hot toddy variation of it to someone else at the bar; while I did not try it this way, my neighbor seemed rather pleased by the result.