monte carlo

2 part Rye Whiskey (2 1/2 oz Old Overholt 86°)
1 part Benedictine (1/2 oz)
(1/8 oz Demerara Syrup)
1-2 dash Angostura Bitters (1 dash)

Stir with ice and strain into a glass. I served it in an old fashioned glass with a large ice cube and a lemon twist.

One of the many Old Fashioned riffs that I served at Drink was the Monte Carlo and variations thereof; despite having posted the tequila riff called the Monte Carlos, mashups with it such as the Call of the Wild, and a Cognac-Madeira recipe by that name, I have never posted the classic on the blog. Therefore, I turned to David Embury's 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks to review the original drink spec. Embury with a notoriously dry palate strangely proffered this sweet recipe in his tome. He agreed that it ought to be shifted from 2 parts rye whiskey to 4-5 parts and even suggested adding lemon juice to push it further. I opted for the 5:1 ratio that I did for my Monte Carlo offerings at work, and I stuck with one dash of Angostura Bitters because a heavy hand will mask the beauty of the liqueur to my palate. In addition, I felt that the combination needed some body, so I tasked a barspoon of 1:1 Demerara syrup to donate a pleasing mouthfeel. For complexity, I would split that 2 1/2 oz rye whiskey with apple brandy (1 3/4 oz rye, 3/4 oz Laird's Bonded) or with Cognac (2 oz rye, 1/2 oz Pierre Ferrand Ambre) to make it two steps removed from a classic Old Fashioned. Moreover, it taught guests that fruit flavors such as apple and grape did not have to be sweet.Built without the brandy addition, it donated a lemon and rye bouquet to the nose. Next, caramel from the Benedictine on the sip slid into rye, herbal, minty, and clove flavors on the swallow.