laphroaig project

1 oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Maraschino Liqueur (Luxardo)
1/2 oz Laphroaig Quarter Cask Scotch (Laphroaig 10 Year)
1/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse
2 dash Peach Bitters (Fee Brothers)

Shake with ice, strain into a double old fashioned glass with ice, and garnish with a lemon twist.

Two Mondays ago, I was listening to the new episode of the Bartender At Large podcast (or the Patreon bonus episode) where host Erick Castro and Imbibe Magazine editor Paul Clarke discussed the Laphroaig Project, and I realized that I had never made one for myself. I had straw-tasted it years ago when I had a regular at Russell House Tavern circa 2013-14 who was from San Francisco and used to request them off menu from me which was great since we had housemade peach bitters at the time (my bar notebook says that his name was Jonathan and we began talking about cocktails when he ordered a Prince Edward that he had learned down the road at Rendezvous). The closest to a full drink that I had tried was a variation called the Pineapple Project at Ames Street Deli in December 2014. This lesser known neo-classic was created by Owen Westman at Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco circa 2009, and its popularity as a bartender's choice drink has probably been effected by the skyrocketing cost of Chartreuses and Laphroaig Scotch as compared to 15 years ago not to mention the availability issues of all those ingredients (when I was doing the ordering at Drink in 2022, I was more crushed by Laphroaig outages than Chartreuse shortages). Overall, it has the same feel of Death & Co.'s Pete's Word on paper (I need to make this soon) with the lemon juice aspect of the Final Ward.In the glass, the Laphroaig Project launched with a lemon, peat smoke, and nutty cherry bouquet. Next, a lemon sip with a hint of fruitiness slid into herbaceous, smoky Scotch, and nutty cherry flavors on the swallow.