bughouse

2 oz Cognac (Courvoisier VS)
1 oz Cocchi Sweet Vermouth
3 dash Angostura Bitters
1 dash Absinthe (20 drop St. George)

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry.
Two Saturdays prior, I opened Michael Madrusan and Zara Young's 2017 A Spot at the Bar and came across the section on the Harvard Cocktails and riffs thereof. The Harvard Cocktail as a Cognac Manhattan first appeared in George Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks with soda water, but it lost the bubbles in later publications. Here, the book offered up an Everleigh riff called the Bughouse that simply gussied things up with a dash of absinthe. The Bughouse in the glass donated a grape and bright herbal nose. Next, the vermouth's grape drove the sip, and the swallow showcased the Cognac accented by herbal, allspice, anise, and clove elements.