Thursday, December 2, 2010

applewood

2 oz Applejack
1/2 oz Demerara Simple Syrup
1 barspoon Pimento Dram
2 dash Angostura Bitters
2 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass pre-rinsed with Laphroaig 10 Year Scotch. Garnish with freshly grated cinnamon.

For my second drink at Lineage last Friday night, I asked bartender Ryan Lotz to make me the Applewood. The Applewood was essentially an applejack Old Fashioned, but the additional ingredients Ryan added to it generally donate rather complementary flavors. Indeed, the allspice in the Pimento Dram, the smoke and malt in the Scotch, and the cinnamon in the garnish all have worked in past apple brandy drinks I have tasted, but they never were in the same cocktail all at once.
The Applewood's nose contained cinnamon and the Scotch's smoke notes. The drink proved to be a tasty Old Fashioned with a good bit of spice on the swallow. Of the complementary elements, the allspice and apple pairing was the best of the three. While the drink lacked anise flavors from Herbsaint or absinthe, Ryan's description of "a seasonal spin on the Sazerac" was a decent one.

1 comment:

Ben Alpers said...

I really like this one (despite overdoing it a little on the allspice dram)!

I particularly like the effect of the Laphroiag wash. I've never liked Sazeracs as much as I feel I should, in part because the interaction between the absinthe and the rye leaves me cold (my favorite NOLA cocktail is the Vieux Carre). But here the peaty/iodine nose of the wash works just perfectly with the rest of the drink (even my wife, who likes single malts but dislikes them in mixed drinks, appreciated this).

This is one I'll return to in the future!