local is the new pink

[by john]

i brought home two new bottles as part of my qualifying exam recovery program: four roses bourbon ($20 bottle!) and greylock gin, produced by a local distiller (on twitter, nice). drinking (cocktails) locally is a crazy idea unless you live in, say, kentucky or italy, but now i'm afforded that, er, additional warm and fuzzy feeling.

i decided to make a martinez with it. the martinez is a very old cocktail, with a long history better detailed in other more assiduous cocktail blogs. a precursor to the martini, but with italian vermouth. there are variations out there with french vermouth, which is what i was feeling like, so i went with cocktaildb's:

martinez (variation)

1 1/4 oz gin [greylock]
1 oz french vermouth [noilly prat]
1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
1 dash orange bitters [angostura]

stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. [no cherry for me, thanks.]

pretty delightful. surprisingly, the noilly prat managed to tame the greylock's botanicals on the nose. the taste: fruity, botanical, dry, and a little sweet, all with the distinctive gin backbone.

at the moment, i've run out of plymouth, so greylock will be the workhorse for a while. looking forward to it.


p.s. - it's the season for phd defenses, and some celebratory champagne got me thinking about what i'll be pouring for my own après-defense. i'd love to mix batches of an original cocktail, but that'd present a few logistical challenges. maybe champagne cocktails, then? i have some time to think about it, anyway.