pretedant nobel

1 1/2 oz Grand Marnier
3/4 oz Amaro Montenegro
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1 dash Orange Bitters

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

Two Mondays ago after I DJ'd, Andrea and I went down the street to Eastern Standard for a late dinner. For a drink, I asked bartender Hugh Fiore for the Prétedant Nobel, subtitled "a rightful king made sour." The drink was one of the four served at this year's Bar Room Brawl competition at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, and it currently resides on both Eastern Standard's and Island Creek Oyster Bar's menus. At the Brawl, I only tried their City of Champions for I wanted to save room to taste their competitors' libations; therefore, the Prétedant Nobel was one of the drinks I missed until now. While enjoying this drink, Tales of the Cocktail's Paul Tuennerman sat down next to me to eat dinner so I had a double whammy of Tales nostalgia. Paul was in town for business and was able to catch the Appleton Re-Mixology competition earlier that night (which I sadly missed for I had the music gig).
The Prétedant Nobel had a large amount of Grand Marnier as a nod to one of the Brawl's sponsors and is only outdone by the proportion in John Gertsen's epic Mission of Burma. The Grand Marnier worked its magic starting in the aroma where it coupled with the bright notes of the lemon twist. Next, the sip was a sweet citrus, and this was followed by the lemon's crispness on the swallow and the liqueurs' orange and caramel notes on the aftertaste. While there was definitely a lot of sugar in this drink, it was not overwhelmingly sweet due to the lemon's acid and the amaro's bitter notes which aided in drying the balance out a bit.