bywater cocktail

1 3/4 oz Aged Rum (Turkey Shore's Old Ipswich Tavern Style)
3/4 oz Picon (Torani Amer)
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
1 tsp Falernum (Velvet)
2 dash Peychaud's Bitters
2 dash Orange Bitters (Regan's)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

A few Tuesdays ago, I turned to Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide and spotted a drink recipe by Chris Hannah of Arnaud's French 75 in New Orleans called the Bywater. Chris described his recipe as, "On a much smaller scale, I've thought of the neighborhoods of New Orleans like the boroughs of New York City. I've always compared New Orleans's Bywater to Brooklyn, so... I decided to create the Bywater Cocktail following the Brooklyn's direction. Swapping an aged rum for rye whiskey and falernum and Chartreuse for the maraschino, I came up with a balanced cocktail." What drew me to the combination besides always enjoying Hannah's craftsmanship was the pairing of Picon with Chartreuse which worked so well in Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli's Jaguar at Eastern Standard; that drink which I tasted in 2007 was quite memorable for was the first stirred tequila drink that I had ever tried or even heard about.
The Bywater Cocktail greeted the senses with dark orange aromas. The orange notes continued on into the sip along with the rum and picon's caramel flavors, and the swallow offered funky rum and herbal notes with a caramel and spice finish. Indeed, Andrea commented that Chris Hannah "undertands the poetry of Chartreuse."