rope burn

1 oz Smith & Cross Rum
1 oz Aperol
1 oz Bonal Gentiane Quina

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with a grapefruit twist.Two Thursdays ago, I searched for Bonal recipes on Kindred Cocktails and found the Rope Burn that was attributed to Allan Katz at Caña Rum Bar in Los Angeles via a now defunct 213Nightlife link. When I tagged Allan on Instagram, he replied that it was a Ron Dollete number; I know of Ron from being very active on Twitter where he self-describes as a "LA boozehound. Slightly sweet. Slightly bitter." The combination reminded me of Eastern Standard's Kingston Contessa with sweet vermouth instead of the quinquina here (the original gin Contessa was dry vermouth though). Here, the Rope Burn began with a grapefruit, orange, and rum funk aroma. Next, grape and melon-orange notes on the sip slid into funky rum and orange flavors on the swallow.

Postnote 12/11/21: I left a comment on Kindred Cocktails attributing the drink to Ron, and someone utilized the Wayback site's snapshot of the L.A. website with this quote from Allan:

So I like to always have a Negroni riff on Caña’s menu. Makes it easier to realize my goal of one day having a calendar with a Negroni for each day of the year. For the Spring, I selected a drink created by one of our members, Ron Dollete a/k/a Lush Angeles. More than your average barfly blogger, Ron trained with some real deal bartenders to learn the craft, and Rope Burn is proof.