end of the road

1 oz Laphroaig 10 Year Scotch
1 oz Campari
1 oz Green Chartreuse

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe (Nick & Nora).One of the recipes in the "Drinks of Drink" notebook that caught my eye despite not being invented in-house was Chris McMillian's End of the Road that appears in Beta Cocktails. I had never made this number despite having had the successor, Start of a New Road, at Backbar. Since two Saturdays was my last shift at Drink, I figured that it was a good cocktail to go out on. I did ponder why this intense combination of Scotch with an almost medicinal peat smoke, bitter orange Campari, and aggressively herbaceuous Chartreuse was called End of the Road; when I went to Portland Cocktail Week the following day, I perhaps got a clue even if it is wrong. I attended a Glenmorangie seminar where they shared a recipe booklet that also had drinks from their sister distillery Ardbeg in it. In those pages, they had The (Real) End of the Road made with Ardbeg Uigeadail with the story provided "Ardbeg is the last distillery – at the end of the Islay road." I could find no evidence that this cocktail had ever been made with Ardbeg by McMillian, so who knows the reason for the finality in the name. Alas, for me, it was the end of a year long adventure from reopening Drink after a 4.5 month repair shutdown to becoming the bar manager while still bartending and finally becoming the general manager while still being the bar manager and bartender (and whatever else needed to be done including being two barbacks at once (and doing the job better) or the door guy). Eventually, they asked for even more -- more than I could give as an individual trying to hold an absurd to the rest of the world semblance of work-life balance, so I gave notice. And my date lined up with the day before Portland Cocktail Week, so it was my own start of a new road a few hours later on Sunday morning.The recipe did not appear in the 2009 Rogue Cocktails or the 2010 'zine and only in the 2011 Beta Cocktails (read about the books' history). Finally getting to this combination 11 years later, it proffered an orange, herbal, and smoke bouquet to the nose. Next, a peachy orange sip terminated with smoky Scotch and herbaceous flavors on the swallow with a bitter quinine finish. Pictured above was the line at open that Saturday night (it extended down the stairs to our door) including three guests in the photo who queued up to say goodbye and mark the end of the road at 348 Congress Street with me.