khartoum

1 oz Cardamaro
1 oz Amaro Montenegro
1/2 oz Smith & Cross Rum

Build in an ice-filled Highball glass with a long Horse's Neck-style orange peel garnish. Top with ~2 oz soda water, stir, and add a straw.

For my second drink at Brick and Mortar, I decided to stick with the tall drink theme and try the Khartoum. While the cardoon (a relative of the artichoke) in Cardamaro might trigger the name Khartoum, the reason why the drink was named after the capital of Sudan was unclear. Perhaps the concept is tied together by the long orange peel garnish. Khartoum may be derived from the Arabic kartūm meaning the end of an elephant's trunk; geographically, the trunk would be the narrow strip of land between the Blue and White Nile Rivers leading to the city. So perhaps instead of calling it a Horse's Neck garnish in the instructions, an Elephant's Trunk one would be more appropriate. Postnote: And despite hand waving arguments, cocktail and pop culture scholar Dagreb in the comments pointed out that Khartoum was the name of the horse in The Godfather which ends up severed horse's neck and up in its owner's bed.
The Khartoum's bouquet contained caramel notes from the Amaro Montenegro and rum notes from the Smith & Cross; as the glass' volume diminished and more of the garnish was revealed, the drink began to provide orange aromas as well. The sip proffered a crisp, carbonated caramel and rum flavor. The funkier aspects of the rum came out in the swallow where they joined the complex herbal wine notes of the Cardamaro and bitter notes of the Amaro Montenegro. Of all the flavor pairings, the Amaro Montenegro's herbal caramel richness complementing the Smith & Cross' bolder notes was the most impressive.