cutlass

1 oz Clear Creek 8 Year Apple Brandy (Morin Calvados Selection)
1/2 oz Laird's Applejack (Laird's Bonded)
1/2 oz Del Maguey Mezcal Vida (Banhez)
1/2 oz Crème de Noyaux (Tempus Fugit)
1/4 oz Honey Syrup
3 dash Peach Bitters (Fee Brothers)

Stir with ice, strain into a coupe, and garnish with a grapefruit twist.Two Sundays ago, I pulled up the online recipe flashcards for Palomar in Portland, Oregon, and the Cutlass called out to me. I soon found it in the bar's menu archives for a December 2022 launch, and it seemed like an interesting use of my bottle of crème de noyaux (that had been gathering dust) to support an apple brandy and mezcal combination. Furthermore, the drink name made me think of the unrelated Cutlass that I found in the 2018 Lustau Sherry competition collection which took a split-based concept in a banana-coffee direction. In the glass, this Cutlass slashed at the nose with grapefruit, apple, and nutty peach aromas. Next, honey, apple, and orchard fruit notes on the sip parried apple, nutty cherry-peach, vegetal, and smoke flavors on the swallow.