[butterfly skeletons]

3/4 oz Berkshire Mountain Distillers Greylock Gin
3/4 oz Cynar
3/4 oz Avèze Gentian Liqueur
3/4 oz Lime Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass.

After the Espolón Cocktail Fights event two Monday nights ago, I walked over to Estragon to meet up with Andrea at the tail end of her dinner. Andrea had already texted me that there was a Cynar drink in bartender Sahil Mehta's notebook that I would probably enjoy. Sahil later explained that he had created that recipe when he knew that Jen from Berkshire Mountain Distillers was stopping by the bar a week or two before. Moreover, he prefers this combination over the Last Word for the herbal notes in the Cynar and Avèze really bolster the botanical elements in the gin.
For a name, I was swayed by Estragon's Spanish connection to think about Federico García Lorca; the name Butterfly Skeletons stemmed from a line in the 1920 Hour of Stars poem, "A thousand butterfly skeletons sleep within my walls." Since butterflies are often a tad bitter to deter predation, it seemed to work. In the glass, it offered funky and earthy herbal aromas spiced with juniper notes to the nose. On the palate, caramel and lime on the sip gave way to gin and earthy bitter on the swallow.