crosseyed and painless

2 oz Privateer Amber Rum (now called Privateer New England Reserve)
1 oz Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac (Du Peyrat Selection)
1/4 oz Honey Syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters
2 dash Peach Bitters (Fee's) (*)

Stir with ice and strain into an Herbsaint-rinsed double old fashioned glass.
(*) The original recipe called for a larger volume of a house peach bitters that was less intense in flavor profile, so I adapted the above for Fee's.Two Thursdays ago, I opened up my files for recipes sheets from when I worked at Russell House Tavern in Harvard Square from 2013 to 2015. There, I honed in on the Crosseyed & Painless that was similarly named after the 1980 Talking Heads song as this drink from New Orleans' Ace Hotel was. The recipe appeared on the Spring 2013 menu which was when I just started working there, and it was a Sazerac riff that utilized house-made peach bitters. I adapted the house recipe to utilize commercially available Fee's Peach Bitters, and that yielded anise, Cognac, and peach aromas. Next, a honey sip danced into rum, Cognac, peach, and clove flavors on the swallow. Perhaps a half barspoon of peach liqueur would yield a more authentic peach flavor that the two droppers full of our house tincture did instead of the more artificial tasting Fee's bitters.