a cynical girl

1 1/2 oz Benedictine
3/4 oz Amaro Abano
1/2 oz Cynar

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.Two Wednesdays ago, Matt Seiter's 2012 book Sanctuaria: The Dive Bar of Cocktails caught my eye on the bookshelf, and I decided to flip through the pages to see if I missed any drinks. There, I landed upon A Cynical Girl by Joel Clark at Sanctuaria in St. Louis, Missouri, that he created for his mother who wanted an after-dinner drink. According to the blog records, I last used the book in 2014, and since then I have acquired a bottle of Amaro Abano which would explain my skipping the recipe before. Once prepared, A Cynical Girl shot forth a scornful look of caramel, minty, root beer, and herbal aromas to the nose. Next, a caramel-driven sip opened up into root beer-minty, bitter herbal, and black pepper flavors on the swallow. When I read the build, I was fearful that it was going to be overly sweet, but with the bitterness to balance it all, it turned out merely rich instead.