Leaping the Day Away

I could not let such a momentous day pass without posting something; the allure of seeing a date-stamp that only comes around once every four years simply being too great to ignore.

While I have two entries in the hopper, neither are quite ready for prime time yet, so we'll have to make do with another delicious libation recipe. Still feeling in the NOLA mood, let's take a stroll down to Chartres Street and visit the Napolean House where a rather delicious assortment of Pimm's Cups are mixed up year round. Originating in England, Pimm's Cups refer to a style of English drink known as a 'fruit cup' - essentially a tall glass filled with ice and various pieces of fresh fruit and herbs, a few ounces of a liqueur and topped off with a mixer, anything ranging from lemonade to ginger ale. The most famous English fruit cup is a Pimm's Cup due to using Pimm's No. 1 liqueur as the alcohol of choice. Pimm's No. 1 itself is rather mysterious, its precise recipe still a closely guarded trade secret, however we do know gin is the base spirit.

Strictly speaking, a Pimm's Cup is a summer drink, intended to be utterly satisfying and thirst-quenching on hot, humid days. While the British steadfastly adhere to such traditions, over here in the land of the Great Insurrection, we do as we see fit and by golly, I think any time of year is a good time for a Pimm's Cup. Tapping into this theme of rebellious free-will, the Pimm's Cup is infinitely customizable to one's tastes and preferences, the only hard and fast requirement being the inclusion of Pimm's No. 1. Outside of that, mix and match however you see fit - ginger ale, lemon-lime soda, lemonade, limeade, etc. all make excellent mixers in a Pimm's Cup; be bold, take chances, and sip away my friends.

Leap Day 2020 Pimm's Cup

Ingredients

• 3 ounces Pimm's No. 1
• 4 ounces lemonade
• Apple slices
• Raspberries, sliced in half
• Strawberries, cut in half, then sliced thin
• Mint sprigs
• 1 ounce sparkling water (optional)

Composition
In a tall glass, add the sliced fruit and set aside.

In a cocktail shaker add the Pimm's No. 1, lemonade, and mint. Add a handful of ice and stir aggressively to add a nice chill and bruise the mint.

Pour the contents of cocktail shaker into the tall glass containing the sliced fruit. Stir well with a bar spoon to ensure everything is well mixed. Top with sparkling water if desired. Truth be told, my glass was filled to the brim, so I omitted the sparkling water.

Be warned, the first Pimm's Cup is persuasively easy to consume and will leave you desperately lusting for a second. The second Pimm's Cup is every bit as satisfying as the first and will leave you contemplating either a third or answering the siren's call of the whiskey shelf beckoning you to make an Old Fashioned or Manhattan or Sazerac. At this point, it's best to just find a comfy chair and prepare to order in, you are about to embark on some serious contemplation of life's more nuanced aspects.

Cheers to all - see you in March.

Who Dat?

New Orleans must be one of the most paradoxical cities on Planet Earth. Breathtaking for its beauty and filth, its charm rivaled only by its stench. I suspect New Orleans is today as it has always been - a paradise of excess in every direction; home to opulence and debauchery, titans, shiftless layabouts, and everything in between. Perhaps this fate is inevitable for any city built upon a major trade port and New Orleans is one of the oldest trade ports in United States. The great Charles Kuralt hosted CBS News Sunday Morning, a show my mother, and I in turn, faithfully watched throughout my childhood. In retirement, Mr. Kuralt penned several books, one of which, Charles Kuralt's America, contained twelve chapters, each chronicling an entire month spent in a specific city. The first chapter, January, details the month he spent in New Orleans and captures the most memorable quote I've come across regarding this magnificent city:

Unless you're broke or sick or blue-nosed, I don't see how you could have anything but a good time in New Orleans. "Unique" is a word that cannot be qualified. It does not mean rare or uncommon; it means alone in the universe. By the standards of grammar and by the grace of God, New Orleans is the unique American place.

The Crescent City holds a very special place in my life - spellbound by its music and its food as a child, little could I have guessed that years later as an adult, within hours of arriving on my very first visit, that the city's inexplicable and ever-present magic would introduce me to the single-most important person in my life. Twenty-three years later, I can assure you it was love at first sight, on both counts. Looking back at that impossible collision of fate, I chuckle and think to myself of course it was in New Orleans, could it be any other way?

Upon arriving in the city for the first time, one quickly gets the sense that everything in New Orleans has a story attached to it, oftentimes multiple conflicting stories. Case in point - the Sazerac cocktail. Considered by some to be the earliest known American cocktail, its origins date back to the mid-1800s, yet its precise history remains murky with many disputed twists and turns. Here's a nickel tour's worth of how the Sazerac came to be as I understand it.

Step One - A Creole injection into New Orleans. The successful Haitian Slave Revolt between 1791 and 1804 caused tens of thousands of French colonists to flee Haiti for New Orleans which in turn formed the basis of the Creole culture of New Orleans. Somewhere in the early 1800s, a very young Antoine Amédée Peychaud fled Haiti for New Orleans and would eventually open an apothecary shop in which he sold numerous medicinal elixirs.

Step Two - A French spirit injection into New Orleans. In the mid-1800s, a spirits importer and owner of the Merchants Exchange Coffee House named Sewell T. Taylor began to import a brand of cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils.

Step Three - Worlds collide. Around the same mid-1800s time frame, Mr. Taylor began to mix a concoction of his cognac, absinthe, bitters (some claim from Antoine Peychaud's apothecary), and sugar. Choosing to focus on his spirits import business, Mr. Taylor handed over operations of the Merchants Exchange Coffee House to Aaron Bird who subsequently changed the name to Sazerac Coffee House to honor the unique cognac cocktail served within its doors.

Step Four - Disaster! In the late-1800s the phylloxera plague decimated the vineyards of France destroying France's wine industry and in turn France's cognac industry. Back in New Orleans, with cognac imports drying up, the folks at the Sazerac Coffee House, now being operated by a Thomas H. Handy, had to find an alternative and fatefully chose to substitute rye whiskey in place of cognac.

Step Five - Another deviation. In 1912, absinthe was banned in the United States due to its reputation for being far more destructive to society than other distilled spirits. New Orleans being New Orleans was unfazed and began to produce its own absinthe alternative, the anise-flavored Herbsaint.

Step Six - Immortalized. In 1949, the Roosevelt Hotel opened the Sazerac Bar. Fittingly, the Roosevelt Hotel stands three blocks up Canal Street from where both the Sazerac Coffee House and Peychaud's Apothecary once stood on Royal Street. Today, just as the Carousel Bar is a must-visit for Vieux Carré fans, the Sazerac Bar is a must-visit for Sazerac fans. Being located in a giant hotel combined with a famous name and a storied history usually results in large crowds, but every visit I have made to the bar has yielded well-made and thoroughly enjoyable Sazeracs. Yes the bartenders are busy, but they do consistently churn out delicious libations.

Thirsty yet? Happily the drink is easy enough to make at home and hey, it's Carnival Season, so what better excuse to mix away.

The Sazerac

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon absinthe or Herbsaint (absinthe containing less than 10ppm of thujone - wormwood - was deemed legal in the United States in 2007, as such, absinthe availability has steadily increased)
• 1 teaspoon of simple syrup
• 5 dashes Peychaud's bitters
• 1 or 2 dashes, a scant drop, of Angostura bitters (ferociously controversial and totally optional; I personally feel Angostura augments the flavors quite nicely, but traditionalists leave it out)
• 2 ounces rye whiskey (there is a Sazerac Rye from Buffalo Trace which can be hard to find, no worries, there are plenty of awesome alternatives: Heaven Hill's Rittenhouse Bottled in Bond or Pikesville, Jim Beam's Knob Creek Rye, Wild Turkey's 101 Rye or Russell's Reserve Rye just to name a few. We are looking for a punchy rye, 45% ABV or higher) 
• Strip of lemon peel, skin only, no pith welcome to this party

Composition
Pour the absinthe into the glass you plan to enjoy your Sazerac from. Tilt and twirl the glass around, working to coat the entire inside with absinthe, from base to lip. Once satisfied, pour any remaining absinthe out, we only want to leave behind the absinthe that clings to the inside of the glass, no pooling allowed.

In a mixing vessel or cocktail shaker, add the rye, simple syrup, and bitters. Stir well and taste. Here is where you will need to adjust the drink to your preference. We are looking for a strong, spirit-driven taste here, more spirit than sweet. Also, we are looking for a strong but not dominant presence by the bitters. Adjust to your preferences.

Once satisfied, add a good handful of ice to the concoction and stir well for 20 or so seconds to get a nice chill and some dilution. Please, oh please, do not plop the top of the cocktail shaker on and shake, the Sazerac is many things, but frothy ain't one of them.

Strain the chilled cocktail into your absinthe-prepped glass, and give your lemon peel a nice twist directly over the center of the glass releasing those delicious lemon oils onto the surface of the cocktail. The final flourish is to swipe the lip of the glass with the lemon peel. At this point some say toss the peel into the trash, others say toss the peel into the glass with the hooch, dealer's choice.

One footnote, as we learned, the original Sazerac was made with cognac and only switched to rye whiskey when France's wine industry was devastated in the late 1800s. Happily, France's wine industry rebounded (thanks to American vine rootstock, but that's a story for another time) and cognac is readily available. It is amazing how different a Sazerac is when made with cognac, a totally different beast and well worth experimenting with. Personally, I like the rye version a whisker more because it is less sweet, but if life is good with one Sazerac, then surely it must be twice as good when you have two to taste side-by-side.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

Clash of the Peat Titans

tl;dr summary - two sensationally delicious examples of Islay peated single malt Scotch whisky. The Ardbeg is smokey-sweet candy that is less complex but much more approachable than the savory bitter-smoke roulette wheel of tastes and smells that is the Laphroaig.

The island of Islay holds a special place in the hearts of peated Scotch fans. Home to nine distilleries and ample peat bogs, Islay is ground zero for Scotland's smoke-influenced malt whisky industry. Distillation began in the 1700s for two of Islay's finest - Bowmore and Lagavulin. Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, and Laphroaig followed in the 1800s. Bringing up the rear, Islay's two newest distilleries - Ardnahoe and Kilchoman began distilling in the 2000s.

Tonight's tasting pits two of Islay's giants, Ardbeg and Laphroaig, against each other. Geographically, Ardbeg and Laphroaig are separated by a mere 3.2 miles on Islay's southern coast but each offer quite unique interpretations of a peated single malt Scotch whisky. Anecdotally, lying smack-dab in-between Laphroaig and Ardbeg is Ron Swanson's beloved Lagavulin, which, when combined with its flanking neighbors constitute the three best-known distilleries on Islay.

Ardbeg and Laphroaig each offer in their core product portfolio a 10-year expression. In Laphroaig's case, there are two 10-year offerings - a standard bottling at 43% ABV and a Cask Strength offering typically in the 58% ABV range. For this tasting, I will be using Laphroaig's Cask Strength version (Batch 6 bottled in February 2014 to be specific), but will be proofing my pour down to match Ardbeg's 46% ABV. As you can tell by the picture at the top, the Laphroaig is significantly darker than the Ardbeg, but sadly, this is almost certainly due to being artificially colored whereas the Ardbeg is au naturel. Neither malt is chill-filtered. As for cost, the Ardbeg typically retails in the $50 range, but can be scored for as low as $42ish if caught on sale. The Laphroaig 10-year Cask Strength version can be harder to find as it is not produced in huge quantities. Should you encounter a bottle, expect to pay ~$75. The standard version of Laphroag 10-year (bottled at 43% ABV) is easily found and typically retails in the $40 ballpark.

Let's jump into the side-by-side.

Smell
These are totally different animals. The Laphroaig is herbal, medicinal, and yes smokey. The Ardbeg is barley sweetness that is quite reminiscent of corn sweetness. Jeesh, as improbable and nonsensical as this sounds, the sweetness on the nose of the Ardbeg is very reminiscent of un-aged corn whiskey. The Ardbeg has a punch of peat smoke equal to that of the Laphroaig, but the underlying sweetness of the Ardbeg fools my nose into thinking it's a totally different type of smoke influence.

Taste
Yet again, these are nothing alike. The Ardbeg's sweetness carries over from the nose just as the Laphroaig's savory vibe carries over as well. The Ardbeg is effectively a sugar-bomb compared to the Laphroaig. While not as sweet as the Ardbeg, the Laphroaig is no less enjoyable. The Ardbeg starts and finishes sweet whereas the Laphroaig starts savory and finishes slightly bitter, think Angostura bitters. There is a sudden snap of bitterness to the Laphroaig near the tail-end of the sip that I find a bit jarring. Both of course carry a peat-punch, but the Laphroaig's bitter smoke is slightly less pleasing to me than the Ardbeg's sweet smoke. Aside from the peat smoke, there is some commonality, I find vanilla and honey present in both.

Finish
It's a tie in terms of length and power, both linger for an astonishingly long time. Peat smoke dominates the finish of both followed by the respective sweet/savory notes of the malts. What's curious to me is Internet sleuthing indicates that both the Ardbeg 10-year and the Laphroaig 10-year are exclusively matured in ex-bourbon barrels. As such, I would expect a more common experience between the two, yet they are radically different. Just how did the folks at Laphroaig impart that savory bitterness into their whisky?

Overall
Come to think about it, tasting these two side by side almost certainly tainted the subtleties of each whisky. Imagine trying a Roquefort alongside a Stilton - absolutely you will pick up some characteristics of each, but I'm betting the more nuanced characteristics would be dwarfed by the sledgehammer of the experience. What does appear when tasting side-by-side, rather dramatically, are the differences between the two malts. Characteristics that have never occurred to me suddenly became obvious - the corn whiskey vibe from the Ardbeg, the Angostura bitters twist from the Laphroaig.

So where does this leave me? The Ardbeg is a straight forward, sweet peat malt with gentle vanilla and honey. The Laphroaig is more complex, like a Wonka Gobstopper unraveling an array of taste and smell characteristics throughout the experience. Allow me to indulge in a food analogy - imagine bringing home a dozen or so large shrimp, the shrimp represent the freshly made peated malt that constitute both the Ardbeg and Laphroaig. You peel and devein all twelve but take six of those beauties and turn them into coconut fried shrimp. This is the Ardbeg 10-year. With the remaining six shrimp you decide to channel your inner Paul Bocuse and whip up a shrimp Provençale. This is the Laphroaig 10-year.

Ultimately, if I were to pick, the Ardbeg would be a weeknight pour when I am just looking to turn the brain off and relax whereas the Laphroaig would be for nights where I was willing to spend the mental energy contemplating the dram. All told, I wager I'd drain two bottles of the Ardbeg 10-year by the time I finished a single bottle of the Laphroaig. Along those lines, the Ardbeg would absolutely be my choice to introduce someone who is curious about trying peated malt whisky for the first time. I feel the Ardbeg is far more approachable and easier to enjoy than the Laphroaig, however the Laphroaig has oodles of nuance to discover for those willing to invest in the journey.

Somewhere over the rainbow

I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

Coming Soon! A grand tasting pitting four whiskeys against each other. Totally blind for all! Who will come out on top? Will there a be a consensus among the group or will it descend into a chaotic rabble of contradiction? Stay tuned, results are tentatively scheduled to be posted in late February.


2020-01-03 UPDATE - Updating to include overview/instructions for tasting participants.

You will receive four four-ounce samples of whiskey. Each sample contains a different but completely unadulterated whiskey available at retail today. The four whiskeys have been separated into two different groups - Red & Yellow and Blue & Green. You will be choosing a favorite from each group and finally ranking all four, most favorite to least favorite.

Feel free to write as much as you see fit for each whiskey. Of particular interest is why you ranked one over another. The ranking and a few sentences for each will suffice.

Task #1 - Rank your preference from each group:
Ranking #1 - Red vs. Yellow
Ranking #2 - Blue vs. Green

Task #2 - Rank your preference, most favorite to least favorite, across all four whiskies:
Ranking #3 - All four - how you rank the four, most to least favorite

After comparing, contrasting, and ranking the four, you are free to do with the whiskey whatever you please but do document and relay your adventures!

Memorable Pours of 2019 - Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban 14 Year

Fourteen Left, Twelve Right

Well this seems a bit like a cop-out, but dear reader, I assure you it is a sincere cop-out. Glenmorangie's Quinta Ruban earned a permanent spot on my shelf from the get-go all those years ago when I first started taking whisky seriously. Aged ten years in ex-bourbon barrels, then transferred to Portuguese ruby port pipes for an additional two years, Quinta Ruban has consistently buttered my biscuits in all the right ways: jammy-wine influence, a bit of orange oil, a touch of vanilla and a good punch of malt sweetness.

In late 2018, the folks at Glenmorangie announced they were changing Quinta Ruban - rather than spending ten years in ex-bourbon barrels, it would now be twelve before being transferred to the port pipes for the same two years as before. Miraculously, the retail price, ~$55, remained the same despite the overall age statement improving to 14 years vs the original's 12 years.

By May of 2019, I finally saw the 14-year version trickling into retail shops in my neck of the woods. A happy side-effect of the new label meant retailers began offering the outgoing 12-year version at discount pricing, typically in the $45 ballpark, a ridiculously awesome price-to-quality ratio in my opinion.

My initial pours of the 14-year were not all that impressive, in fact, I was downright disappointed. It seemed to me the 14-year was more savory and less grape-fruit forward than the 12-year. It also seemed like the 14-year had more alcohol prickle/punch than the 12-year despite both being bottled at 46% ABV. Tasting the two side by side seemed to confirm both observations, but not to a consistent degree - some nights I preferred the 12-year, others the 14-year. Then I discovered a bit of a trick to make the 14-year more enjoyable to my palate: a bit more water splashed in and a bit more time in the glass before sipping. Numerous side-by-side samplings consistently showed that with a bit more water and time than I would expend on the 12-year made the 14-year deliver a deeper, more complex, more vibrant flavor than the 12-year. Essentially, the 14-year is the Nigel Tufnel version of the 12-year.

This is not to say the 12-year is a slouch, quite the contrary in fact - it is still a fantastic malt. As an added bonus, because Quinta Ruban is so heavily distributed across the United States, there is a very good chance you will be able to score a bottle of the 12-year for less than $50. Of course, if you desire the upgraded 14-year, I can safely vouch that if you enjoyed the 12-year, or any port-finished whiskey for that matter, it is worthy of the $55(ish) asking price.

Happy New Year! Let's get this new decade underway.

Memorable Pours of 2019 - Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Heritage Barrel (2018 Release)

This is not the Old No. 7 that I remember from my occasionally foggy college nights. Truth is, this bottle would have never come into my life had it not been for another leap of faith I took on Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Barrel Proof. So impressed was I with that bottle that when I saw a brand new Jack Daniel's Single Barrel variant adorned in a fetching indigo blue label appear on a local retailer's shelf, I immediately grabbed one without hesitation.

So what is the Heritage Barrel release? From a distillate point of view, the Heritage Barrel is identical to Old No. 7 - a 80% corn, 8% rye, and 12% malted barley mash that is column distilled and run through a vat of charcoal (the Lincoln County Process) before being placed in new charred oak barrels for aging. It's here that the Heritage Barrel takes a detour from standard Old No. 7 in both barrel type as well as barrel entry proof. As explained by the distillery:

Unique Barrel Toasting You Won't Find In Any Other Single Barrel

This release celebrates the early craftsmanship of the Jack Daniel Distillery. The whiskey is from uniquely crafted heavy-toast barrels and 100 proof barrel entry proof.

The "Heritage Barrel" expression of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel was crafted with a low temperature, heavy toasted barrel which created a light but rich char full of deep flavor. A lower 100 proof entry proof allows our grain bill to assert itself creating a special Tennessee whiskey with notes of light baking spices, vanilla, and toasted oak with a long, lingering finish, aged to perfection at the top of one of the highest elevated barrelhouses, 1-09, on Coy Hill. What emerges is a flavorful and rich Tennessee Whiskey.

Nose - Honey, gingerbread, mulled fruit/spices, gentle cinnamon and baking spices. The longer in the glass, the more prolific and nostril filling it becomes. What.An.Aroma.

Taste - a bit more spice than sweet. Very gentle oak, zero char here. Warming hug as the sip descends. Proofed perfectly. Lovely alcohol tingle, like a soothing TENS unit for your tongue.

Finish - long, slightly drying, spice first, then some sweetness, then a very mild tannic drying.

Speaking bluntly, not only is Jack Daniel's Heritage Barrel a memorable pour of 2019, but it has easily remained near the top of my ever-changing list of all-time favorite pours. Each pour dazzles and delights and I am hard-pressed to name a single fault in regard to the actual whiskey ... and there's the rub because while the whiskey is sensational, there is a dark reality lurking in the shadows: availability.

Never intended to be an annual release, the folks at Jack Daniel's only produced a finite amount of Heritage Barrel barrels. In the first year of availability, the Fall of 2018, Brown-Forman claimed 200 Heritage Barrels were bottled. While no specific bottle count was given, one can do a little informal analysis - a Jack Daniel's whiskey barrel holds 53.3 gallons of distillate which equates to 201.7624 liters that will produce 269 750ml bottles. That number however assumes no loss to leakage or evaporation. It's estimated that barrels stored on the top floor of maturation warehouses, just as the Heritage Barrels are, lose ~30% of their liquid during the average maturation time of 5-6 years. Applying that correction yields ~188 750 ml bottles from each barrel and a grand total of ~37,600 bottles for the release. Back in 2018, Brown-Forman insinuated those 200 barrels were the entirety of their Heritage Barrel stocks, but refused to confirm or deny when directly asked if that was indeed all there was.

That refusal became moot in the Fall of 2019 when Brown-Forman announced they were bottling another 200 barrels of Heritage Barrel, but that these 200 barrels were indeed the last of the Heritage Barrel program. Jeff Arnett, master distiller at Jack Daniel's, claimed in an interview that originally 400 total Heritage Barrel barrels were filled and it was decided to split the batch across two years to see how one additional year of maturation affected the whiskey.

In my personal experience, I did not encounter a whole lot of Heritage Barrel bottles in either 2018 or 2019. In fact, I never saw a bottle from either year in any major chain liquor store like Total Wine or ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. Every bottle I encountered was in a mom-and-pop liquor store. All of this is to say finding a bottle of Heritage Barrel will almost certainly prove difficult at retail by the time you are reading this. This is a very bittersweet thing. On one hand, I am beyond grateful to have this whiskey on my shelf to enjoy, but on the other, I can never freely enjoy this whiskey. Each potential pour will be carefully scrutinized and debated; I am forever Elaine wondering if I am indeed sponge worthy of the indulgence.

There is one remote hope however - the Heritage Barrel releases were so well received by the whiskey public that perhaps the good folks at Brown-Forman will green-light another run of the program at some point in the future. One can hope. In the meantime, this whiskey serves as a reminder that just as with the amount of time we have on this planet to love, the amount of this whiskey that I have to enjoy is finite. Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? (Sniffs the glass, sips the pour) Yeah, I suspect it is.

The Hemingway Daiquiri

It's always curious when myth, nostalgia, and marketing collide. Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was hoofing it down Calle Obispo in Havana, Cuba looking for a restroom when he popped in to the Floridita to use their facilities. Before departing, Hemingway spotted the bartenders pouring a line of the same cocktail and asked to sample one. Upon sipping, Ernest proclaimed 'not bad, but make one without the sugar and double the rum'. And with this, the Papa Doble was born ... or so folklore would have us believe.

What is known is that Ernest Hemingway did indeed live in Cuba and he was indeed a prolific consumer of alcohol. Legend has it that Hemingway 'discovered' (more likely popularized) two cocktails from Cuba - the Mojito (from Bodeguita del Medio) and the Daiquiri (from Floridita).

Both establishments are still in business today, but by most accounts have become more tourist trap than proper cocktail destination. Happily though the recipes are available for all to make at home and enjoy.

The Hemingway Daiquiri has become a staple in our cocktail rotation, particularly in winter when Florida's citrus season produces its citrusy bounty. While it is unknown if Mr. Hemingway ever actually consumed his namesake daiquiri, it is a very nice balance of sweet and tart that is dangerously easy to consume.

I'd suggest using the best quality silver rum you can find - what you are looking for is a silver rum that can be sipped neat without fear of harsh, prickly edges. The next suggestion is to squeeze your own citrus - fresh lime and grapefruit really push this cocktail into the stratosphere.

The Hemingway Daiquiri

Ingredients

• 2 ounces good quality silver rum
• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce fresh grapefruit juice
• 1/2 ounce Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
• Simple Syrup (Optional, added to taste)

Composition
Combine the rum, lime, grapefruit, and Luxardo liqueur in a cocktail shaker. Stir and taste. If too bitter add a teaspoon of simple syrup, stir and re-taste. You are looking for a mixture that is just sweet enough to mask the cutting tartness of the fresh citrus without becoming excessively sweet.

Once satisfied with the tart/sweet balance, add ice to the shaker, plop the top on the shaker and shake well. Strain and serve in your preferred glass of choice.

“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms