[little celery]

1 1/2 oz Sazerac Rye
1/2 oz Luli Chinato
1/2 oz Cynar
1/2 oz Aperol
1 dash The Bitter Truth's Celery Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Or 3 cordial glasses.

Since Andrea had been at Eastern Standard for a while before I got there, it was time to go not too long after I got there. But still leaving enough time for Hugh to mix up a nightcap for us. He had been scanning the shelves for other things that would complement the Bitter Truth's Celery Bitters after making the rhum cocktail for me. He had spotted the Cynar and thought that the artichoke-herbal funkiness of it would work rather well with the celery bitters.

Hugh designed the cocktail similar to the Little Italy, with rye (this one was with the Jackson Cannon barrel that the distillery made up for Eastern Standard), Cynar, and a chinato instead of a sweet vermouth. And he also added in some Aperol and the bitters. Chinatos are vermouths that use quinine (China in Italian). Most chinatos use a lusty and full-bodied Barolo red wine as the base, but the Luli uses a white moscato as a base. One blog described it as, "less intense and a touch sweeter than more traditional Chinatos but still has incredible floral aromatics, lots of kaffir lime, peaches, kumquat, ginger, thyme flowers, basil, jasmine, and hibiscus flavors."

The end product was very vegetal and made for a good nightcap and digestif. Interesting how after not having had a Cynar cocktail in almost a year (I gave Mike at Highland Kitchen the recipe for a Little Italy since he did not know what to do with "that stuff") that I have had two Cynar cocktails chosen for me in consecutive nights. To me, that is a good omen!