[chappe telegraph]

1 oz Laird's Applejack
1 oz Bonal Gentiane Quina
1/2 oz Amontillado Sherry
1/2 oz Amaro Ramazzotti
1 dash Regan's Orange Bitters
1 dash Bar Keep's Apple Bitters (*)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
(*) Perhaps sub a scant dash of spice-driven aromatic bitters or leave out in a pinch.

Two Mondays ago, Andrea and I utilized my Monday night off to go visit Sahil Mehta at Estragon. While looking through Sahil's recipe notebook, I spied an applejack recipe that reminded me of a Marconi Wireless. To play on that theme, I wanted to dub this nameless drink after another form of wireless communication, a semaphore or optical chain called the Chappe Telegraph after the creator of this 1792 system, Claude Chappe. Towers with light shutters on blades could spread a communication from one tower to a distant one down the line, and Napoleon utilized this system to transmit messages across France on the order of a couple of  hours. Maybe the Napoleon Wireless would have been more catchy of a cocktail name though.
The Chappe Telegraph transmitted an orange aroma that later let through some apple notes. Next, the sip featured the Bonal and sherry's grape and the amaro's caramel. Finally, the swallow offered apple and nutty sherry notes that melded with the Bonal and Ramazotti bitter notes, and it ended with an orange peel finish.