vantage point

1 oz Laird's Apple Brandy (Laird's Bonded)
1 oz Arkansas Black Applejack (Morin Calvados)
3/8 oz Amaro Nonino
3/8 oz Cinnamon Syrup
3 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into an absinthe-rinsed (Kübler) old fashioned glass, and garnish with orange oil from a twist. The original recipe was 3/4 oz Nonino-cinnamon mix, and I assumed that it was equal parts.

Two Sundays ago, I returned to the Hawthorne bar book where I spotted the Vantage Point created by Mackenzie Cavanagh. The recipe read like an apple brandy Sazerac with two types of apple spirit and a mix of Amaro Nonino and cinnamon as the sweeteners (they batched this duo); I had a hard time remembering if I ever had an apple brandy Sazerac from a recipe (I am sure that I must have thrown some in previously), but I did recall the Marilou Sazerac that had it as one of the three base spirits. I do not have the hard-to-find and pricy applejack made with Arkansas Black apples, so I bolstered the complexity by adding Calvados to the Laird's spirit.The Vantage Point shined an orange, cinnamon, apple, and anise aroma towards the nose. Next, caramel and a vague fruitiness on the sip led to an apple, cinnamon, herbal, and anise swallow.