El Camino

 

Story

Lately I've taken an interest in mezcal, which is the blanket term for any agave distillate.  Tequila, for example, is a type of mezcal.  Mezcals are a broad category that’s often compared to wine because the type of agave, local soil content, plant ripeness, distillation method, and fermentation all play a part in the final product.  There are also ethical issues to consider, including sustainability and instances of exploitation of farmers by big companies.  Fortunately, there are lots of well-run producers to choose from.
This cocktail was created at the Chestnut Club in Santa Monica, CA, and published in Imbibe magazine.  Mezcal can be kind of a bully in cocktails, but the assertive rye goes toe-to-toe with it and the Benedictine helps dial the smokiness down from “a dragon’s breath in the morning” to “standing around a ski lodge fire”.  Enjoy this sipper.
 
Recipe
4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1 oz mezcal (I used Del Maguey Vida, a popular choice for cocktails)
1 oz rye (I used Rittenhouse)
0.5 oz Benedictine
Orange twist
-Stir ingredients with ice until chilled.  Strain into glass over fresh ice.  Garnish with orange twist.

Oh My Word! Revisited

 

Story
When we first tried the Oh My Word! back in August 2024, I substituted Dolin Gènèpy le Chamois because Green Chartreuse was in short supply.  Recently I came into possession of another bottle of Green Chartreuse, so I decided to revisit this cocktail since it was one of my favorites.  But when I made one, I discovered that I now find the original version a little too sweet.  To compensate, I decreased the Maraschino liqueur, replaced the Old Tom gin with London Dry, and increased the gin to a full ounce.  The Revisited version is a little more assertive and (I think) better balanced.  Once again, credit to Sother Teague for the original.

Oh My Word! Revisited
0.5 oz Maraschino liqueur
0.75 oz green Chartreuse
0.75 oz Amaro Montenegro
1.0 oz London dry gin
2 dashes (4 shakes of the bottle) lime bitters
-add all ingredients to mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled
-strain into a chilled glass

The Sherpa

 

Story

Sasha Petraske is someone we should all know about.  He’s credited with inventing modern cocktail culture in the early 2000’s and is mentioned frequently by other bartenders who refer to him simply by his first name.  He opened the famous Milk & Honey bar in 1999 and was a creative partner in nearly a dozen other bars around the world.  Sasha had a famous and fantastic set of house rules at Milk & Honey that were on bronze plaques mounted outside the restrooms.  He trained many of the world’s best bartenders and was known for a meticulous attention to detail that bordered on obsessiveness.  He died young (age 42) in 2017 but his influence lives on.

This recipe is a strong but terrific sipper that evolves over time in the glass as the ice melts.  Neither the allspice dram nor the curacao stand out independently but instead they round out the bourbon and create a lovely overall effect, like a citrus old-fashioned.

Recipe
2 dashes orange bitters
0.25 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao (or Cointreau)
0.25 oz allspice dram
2 oz bourbon
Lemon twist
-build the drink in order in a rocks glass starting with the bitters.
-add a large cube of ice and stir a few times.  Garnish with lemon twist.