bittered old coot

1 1/4 oz Rye Whiskey (Sazerac 6)
3/4 oz Drambuie
3/4 oz Fernet Branca
3 dash Fee's Whiskey Barrel Bitters (or other aromatic bitters)

Build in an Old Fashioned glass with a large ice cube and stir until well chilled.

For a New Year's Eve cocktail before we left to go to a party, I selected a drink from the most recent issue of Imbibe magazine that had just arrived. The one that seemed like the perfect way to send 2011 out was Derek Coffelt's Bitter Old Coot. While many of the drinks at Justus Drugstore in Missouri are made with house infusions, this one uses only standard, off the shelf ingredients. One of the other reasons that the recipe called out to me was that it made good use of the strange 1-1/4 over 3/4 oz jigger that I was sent for taking BarSmarts; moreover, the topic of 1-1/4 oz pours being stylishly done with a set of 3/4 and 1/2 oz jiggers by one bartender to the lament of his fellow bartenders (since house recipes began having this odd 1-1/4 measurement) was fresh in my head.
The Bitter Old Coot greeted our noses with a Fernet aroma coupled by Drambuie to me and caramel notes to Andrea. The sip was honey and malt notes, and the swallow had an herbal focus of Fernet and the Drambuie's heather. Overall, it was like an intense Toronto with honey flavors from the Drambuie instead of less notable ones from a sugar cube. Lastly, the drink we later ushered 2012 in with once we got home was the Ramos Gin Fizz to counter this bitter year ender.