mary garden (merry widow)

1 1/2 oz Dubonnet or Byrrh Quinquina (Dubonnet Rouge)
1 1/2 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
1/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino or Grand Marnier (Luxardo Maraschino)
1 dash Regan's Orange Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry.

Two Sundays ago, I ventured into Frank Caiafa's The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book where I spotted a doubly named aperitif. The recipe was both the Mary Garden after a turn of the century opera singer and the Merry Widow after a 19th century operetta. Caiafa pointed out that Hugo Ensslin had a Merry Widow that was a fifty-fifty Dry Martini with New Orleans-style accents of Benedictine, absinthe, and Peychaud's Bitters that was quite delightful, and this is why I posted this recipe as the Mary Garden to help differentiate it (although Caiafa listed it as the Merry Widow).
The Mary Garden when made with Dubonnet and Maraschino curtsied to the nose with a grape and cherry and almost licorice aroma. Next, red grape and cherry on the sip bowed into darker cherry flavor on the swallow with a nutty finish.