lighted lamp

1 oz Beefeater Gin
1 oz Bonal Gentiane-Quina
1/2 oz Pig's Nose Scotch
1/2 oz Benedictine
1/2 oz Cynar
1 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with lemon oil from a twist.

For my first drink at Estragon, I asked bartender Sahil Mehta for his previous shift's drink of the day, and he replied that he thought the combination would appeal to me when he created it. Perhaps Sahil has picked up on how Bonal, Benedictine, and Cynar are some of my favorite ingredients. Sahil explained that he added Scotch here for heft which is something that I have noticed can work well in gin drinks such as in the Automobile, and he added Cynar to the mix when he found the balance too bright. As the drink was nameless, when Sahil mentioned that this cocktail reminded him of smoky jazz bars and bootleggers, and I recommended the name the Lighted Lamp after a Boston Prohibition-era speakeasy.
The Lighted Lamp greeted the nose with a lemon oil and grape aroma, and Bonal's grape continued on into the sip. Next, the swallow began with gin's botanicals as well as funky herbal flavors from the Benedictine and Cynar combination and ended with Scotch notes and Bonal's quinine. Overall, the swallow was rather rounded perhaps due to the Benedictine in the mix.