We close Death & Company week with a cocktail that, on paper, scares the hypothetical caca out of me. A drink made up of three hard liquors, and when I read the names of three hard liquors and one of them is bourbon (facilitator of happy Rose) and one of the others of them is scotch (moody-bordering-on-surly Rose) and then there’s simple syrup — well, it makes me not trust the simple syrup, makes me paranoid that the simple syrup’s lurking in there as some sort of sleight-of-hand trick with the scotch dodging behind it and getting away with murder, and I think this is not going to be a very productive Friday night.

Except I’m wrong on all counts. This is a lovely cocktail that begins with a note of apple crispness and ends with a tongue-tingling kicker of scotch, and in the middle it’s got a big, warm, fat belly. I drink a lot of drinks, but I can’t honestly recall the last time a drink had me wondering after just one, “Why am I in such a good mood? Nothing particularly awesome happened this week, right? Oh, wait, it is this cocktail what I’m drinking.”

OK, I may not be wrong on the unproductive-Friday-night part. Have a good weekend, all!

The North Garden

(Adapted from Death & Co.)

2 ounces Busnel Fine Calvados

3/4 ounce Buffalo Trace Bourbon

1/2 ounce Dewar’s

1/2 ounce simple syrup

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Lemon peel, for garnish

Stir all ingredients briskly with ice. Serve in cocktail glass and garnish with lemon twist.

Tasting Notes:

I deviated from Death & Co.’s recipe in a few significant ways, all of them because I didn’t have the right ingredients at home. For those keeping score, I used calvados and Dewar’s where Death & Co. respectively calls for Lairds Bonded Applejack and Laphroaig 10-year Scotch. Also, places like Death & Co. often list “demerara” on their menus. This is a fancier way of saying turbinado sugar, aka natural brown sugar (as opposed to the unnatural brown sugar I make in my kitchen by mixing molasses into refined granulated white sugar). I just use simple syrup whenever Death & Co. calls for demerara.

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