countless night

1 oz St. George Botanivore Gin
1 oz Campari
1/2 oz Bonal Gentiane-Quina
1/2 oz Fernet Branca

Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with orange oils from a twist.

After the Archipelago Swizzle, I was really excited to chose a drink from Gary Regan's new The Negroni; while I got my copy through the Boston Shaker store, it is available at Amazon via the link above. In the book, besides my absurdist layered Knickroni, are drinks from Boston legends John Gertsen, Brother Cleve, Will Thompson, and Domingo-Martin Barreres, as well as other great bartenders across the country and world. For a starter, I picked Matt Seiter's Countless Night that he crafted at Sanctuaria in St. Louis. In this variation, he split the sweet vermouth into an intriguing combination of Fernet Branca and Bonal while holding everything else the same.
The Countless Night's oils from the orange twist colored the herbal aromas. A grape and somewhat caramel sip led into a gin swallow that showcased the Campari cross with Fernet's menthol-laden bitterness. With the Fernet and Bonal, the balance came across as drier than a regular Negroni despite what is probably a slightly higher sugar content.