[search for the cure]

1 oz Zucca
1/2 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
1/2 oz Palo Cortado Sherry
3/4 oz Punt e Mes
1 barspoon Lemon Juice
1 barspoon Grenadine
3 dash Orange Bitters

Stir with ice and strain over a rocks glass with a partially salted rim and a large ice cube. Garnish with the oil from 6 lemon swaths.

After Trade, or technically after getting beers at Stoddard's and going to Trade, I made my way down Congress Street to Drink. There, I found a seat in front of bartender Will Thompson who offered up lower proof offerings. One curious one was a bitter wine-laden one that he based off of Kirk Estinopal of the Cure's Search for Delicious; he also mentioned that it was a hybrid idea with a drink called Three Inches of Blood -- a drink that I could find no recipe but only find the band that it was named after.
For a drink name, I honored the original drink name and an event back in 2009. When I became a finalist in a bitters competition at Tales of the Cocktail 6 weeks out, we made up our minds to go at 5 weeks out. At 4 weeks out, we decided that the Big Easy would be a great place to elope and by 3 1/2 weeks out, we were getting rings. Once in New Orleans on the Tuesday night before both Tales starting and our wedding vows, we wanted to go to the Cure; we commented that this was our bachelor and bachelorette party. We set off on foot from the French Quarter in a straight line to the Cure. What we did not expect was that this path would take us through the Magnolia Projects, one of the worst neighborhoods in New Orleans. It was also one of the hardest hit areas from Katrina. Between the cockroaches on the sidewalk that would fly up and smack you in the face when you disturbed them to the people on the streets trying to shake us down, it was an interesting walk. We later learned that if Katrina had not happened, we might not have made it out alive to the other side that night. However, we walked with driven bravery and without valence and made it to the Cure. When we got there, bartender Rhiannon Enlil was amazed, declared that we needed a drink, and admonished us to be more careful. A more full account of that first night at the Cure can be found here. Basically, nothing stopped us that night which is a pretty symbolic for our marriage that began the next day.