alice

1 oz Douglas XO Blended Scotch
1 oz Punt e Mes
1 oz Kümmel

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe. Twist an orange peel over the top.

Two Mondays ago before the Appleton Remixology competition, I stopped into Drink for the hour preceding the event. There, I found a seat in front of Josey Packard at the ice bar as she was prepping the evening's batch of large ice chunks for Old Fashioneds. For a cocktail, Josey said that she was really into kümmel these days and recommended the Alice that she found in Stan Jones' Complete Barguide. Jones' Alice did seem like an adaptation of the Alice, Mine from the Savoy Cocktail Book but with a heavier hand on the Scotch. Josie had tinkered with the recipe and swapped in Punt e Mes for the recipe's call for sweet vermouth and also added an orange twist.
The Alice greeted me with a waft of smoke, caraway, and orange oils. The Punt e Mes' grape paired well with the Scotch's malt on the sip, and the swallow showcased the Scotch's smoke, the Punt e Mes' bitter notes, and the kümmel's spice.