yellow jacket

3/4 oz Bonded Apple Brandy (Laird's)
3/4 oz Amaro Nardini
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Ginger Syrup

Shake with ice, strain into a coupe glass, and garnish with candied ginger. Two Saturdays ago, I reached for my copy of The Madrusan Cocktail Companion and spotted the Yellow Jacket in the Gimlet section. While there are several Yellow Jacket recipes out there to the point that the one in the Cocktail Dive Bar book called theirs the Yellow Jacket #2 to acknowledge that it is not the most original of names, this one was crafted by Greg Keesee at the Nashhville branch of Attaboy in 2021. Given the flying insect motif, it is most likely a riff on Sam Ross' Mosquito with its spirit, bitter liqueur, ginger syrup, and citrus structure that I last observed in the Dragonfly (and I more recently had the Overtime but without the bug naming convention). In the glass, the Yellow Jacket buzzed to the nose with ginger, apple, and herbal aromas. Next, lime and caramel notes on the sip opened up into apple, ginger, herbal, and minty flavors on the swallow.