Tuesday, January 3, 2023

.38 special

2 3/8 oz Blended Scotch (Famous Grouse)
3/8 oz Yellow Chartreuse
3/8 oz Amaro CioCiaro

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with a lemon twist.
Two Tuesdays ago, I splurged on a bottle of Amaro CioCiaro after seeing several New York City recipes that call for it; I had held off since I own Amer Picon and Torani Amer, and I had always thought that CioCiaro was only used as a substitute for Picon. The price was right, so I bought one to test it out. The recipe that I started with was the .38 Special from Sasha Petraske's Regarding Cocktails. Michael Madrusan crafted this at Little Branch in 2007, and he described how Sasha fought him on the name for it sounded too violent. Michael countered that it had relevance due to the recipe measurements and was no more violent than the French 75. About a month later, Sasha came around on the name. Once prepared, it shot forth with a lemon, Scotch, and herbal aroma. Next, caramel and honey notes on the sip loaded up a Scotch, caramel, herbal, and orange swallow.

1 comment:

Edward Bellini said...

I didn't care for this one with Scotch - and I tried several decent malts - but with Bourbon it's fantastic.