goodnight irene

1 oz Red Breast 12 Year Irish Whiskey
1 oz Lustau East India Solera Sherry
1 oz Cynar
(1 dash Regan's Orange Bitters) (*)

Stir with ice, strain into a rocks glass, and garnish with lemon oil from a twist.
(*) Postnote: The Hawthorne bar bible includes this recipe with the dash of bitters. Two Thursday ago, I attended a seminar on single pot still Irish whiskeys presented at the Hawthorne by Midleton Distillery's Billy Leighton and Dave McCabe. After the session, Hawthorne bartender Rob Ficks was mixing up three Irish whiskey drinks to showcase these spirits. The one I selected was the Goodnight Irene that was created by Jackson Cannon who subtitled this musical tribute, "I'll see you in my dreams." Once prepared, the Goodnight Irene gave forth a bright aroma from the lemon oil at first that transitioned into caramel and herbal notes later. Next, grape, caramel, and malt mingled on the sip, and the swallow offered up the nutty flavors of the whiskey and sherry that paired well with the funky herbal elements in the Cynar. Indeed, the whiskey here played somewhere between a supportive role in the flavor profile and a structural one as it found its equals with the other components.