Beatnik
Recipe:
- 45ml Averna amaro
- 30ml bourbon (preferably Hudson Whiskey's Bright Lights, Big Bourbon)
- 30ml tawny port
Stir everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into your prechilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a dried orange wheel.
Gotta be honest, after reading the recipe I was afraid of mixing a somewhat unbalanced nightcap drink, this has been the case too often, especially with older US recipe books (even though we are looking at a very contemporary cocktail here). But no, it turned out to be one of my favorite amaro drinks. Great balance, still in the bittersweet category at the end of the day, of course, but a rather fresher Tawny Port (or LBV Port, or Graham's Six Grapes somewhere between Ruby and Tawny, for example) works wonderfully here. As well as following the bourbon requested in the original recipe and if you - like me - don't have that brand available near you, chose another rather light, fresh bourbon, not purely sweet and dark, nutty.
Still very dark on the nose, cola nut, black cherries, bitter orange, walnuts. In the mouth at first fresh red fruit, light toffee and even coconut from the bourbon, then the beautiful bitter orange and cola note from the Averna. But the port loosens it up, it's not overly sweet. I would add 1-2 drops of Saline Solution for a little depth.
Source: Duggan McDonnell, San Francisco
