Fireplace Fashioned
Recipe:
- 60ml cognac (original recipe calls for 50ml)
- 10ml honey syrup (2:1)
- 5ml cinammon syrup
- 2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
- Islay malt (to rinse/perfume the glass)
Stir everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into a prechilled rocks glass, neat, express a lemon zest over the drink, discard, garnish with a rosemary sprig.
The fact that it is served neat is the perfect choice. It doesn't want to be watered down, you can drink it later just as well, if not better, at room temperature.
Simply add the rosemary to the glass and let the aromas enchant you. Deliberately not flambéed, that would be a bit too much for me with the Islay already in the recipe, fresh, resinous rosemary and Islay are more balanced than a double smoke bomb, so to speak.
On the nose, unsurprisingly, beautiful, resinous rosemary, aromatic charcoal smoke (of the Scarabus Islay single malt in my case), followed by dark honey, grapes, oiled leather and candied nuts.
In the mouth, oiled leather, tree resin, great, subtle cinnamon, grapes, raisins, figs, candied walnuts and hazelnuts. It continues with chestnuts, rosemary, incense sticks that just burned out, fine spiciness of the Peychaud's Bitters in the finish.
Source: Santiago Michelis, Alcoholic Architecture, London, England, 2015
