rhythm & soul

1 1/2 oz Bourbon (Old Granddad Bonded)
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth (Maurin)
1/2 oz Averna
4 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a rocks glass rinsed with Herbsaint, and garnish with a lemon twist.

Two Thursdays ago, I restocked my fridge with a new bottle of sweet vermouth to make a recipe that I had spotted on Punch Drinks called the Rhythm & Soul. The recipe was crafted by Greg Best of Atlanta as a mashup of two classics with "the rhythm of a Manhattan and the soul of a Sazerac." I had generated a similar mashup that I had dubbed the Merchants Exchange Manhattan for a Mixology Monday event in 2015. Here, the spirit in the Manhattan was swapped from the more classical rye to Bourbon, and the vermouth was split with Averna that made me think of a Black Manhattan. The Sazerac aspect was not in the bitters which were kept as the Manhattan's Angostura, but as the Herbsaint rinse and the lemon oil garnish.
The Rhythm & Soul, like a Sazerac, presented a lemon and anise aroma. Next, grape and caramel on the sip transitioned into whiskey and herbal elements on the swallow with a chocolate-like, clove, and anise finish.