Alcademics.com

Monday in San Francisco, With Fabulous Prizes

The short version is: A rocking party on Jan 5th at Enrico's in SF with all your favorite bartenders on their nights off, with pretty great raffle prizes you're likely to win, and even better silent auction items.

The slightly longer version is: Tony Devencenzi scored a rare bartending job that came with health insurance. Unfortunately, he managed to get himself hit by a car before the insurance kicked in. OOPS! So in an effort to mock him for being so clumsy help him out, other bartenders in town are throwing a big fat party.

Full details are below, or search Facebook for "Celebration for Tony Devencenzi"

In San Francisco, You May Want to Try the Drinks

Newsflash! Drinks are good in San Francisco! It's true now, because I read it in the New York Times!

New Bars and Old New Bars

San Franciscans should immediately leave work and run screaming to their local newsbox to pick up this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian. Why? Because you'll find me waiting for you inside. In the Scene insert I have two stories. One of them is on some new recommended bottles of booze. The other is on new watering holes that have opened in the city this year.

I realized that I've written the New Bars story for the past three years. Maybe it will be fun to compare my brilliant observations over the years. Let's find out:

New Bars Story 2006

• "At least 15 bar-bars, five wine bars, and five clubs opened in the city, as did a bunch of restaurants that serve great drinks. It takes a strong liver to keep current, further blurring the line between journalism and alcoholism."
•  "Several bars went from upscale to downscale this year, proving that not every lounge needs to be ultra."
• "Three more art bars opened in 2006, following the success of all the other art bars in town."
• "American whiskey bars are big, big, big this year, and now there are three new venues in which you can order a sazerac cocktail or a rye Manhattan."
• "A large number of new restaurants have such great cocktail programs they cause certain writers to spend inordinate amounts of time and money in them without ever trying the food."
• "Now that every neighborhood in San Francisco has a wine bar or three, the new venues are starting to specialize."

New Bars Story 2007

• "Whereas in previous years the lines between bars and art galleries got blurry, this year it’s hard to categorize venues as bars or restaurants or wine bars or cocktail lounges or nightclubs."
•  "Most of the new wine bars are not really bars at all, though- they’re either wine retail outlets with tasting bars inside, or they’re small plates restaurants by another name."
• "Some of the best drinking is to be had in eateries with all those fresh fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients in the kitchen just begging to be muddled into cocktails where they belong."
• "The line between bar and club blurs ever more when there is DJ and bottle service and they serve light appetizers and are open at 5PM. Clubs are opening earlier for increased happy hour drink sales and are demoting space for the dancefloor; in effect becoming cocktail bars with a club crowd."
•  "For a while, all the beer and wine-only bars were selling soju and sake cocktails in an attempt to stay trendy. This is still true at restaurants without full liquor licenses, but now we’re seeing more beer-focused venues that build the concept around the brew, not the food."
• "It seems the least popular type of drinking establishment to open this year is the thing we used to know as a bar, where they don’t serve food (or the food only serves to keep you drinking, like the popcorn machine in Tenderloin bars) and there isn’t a dancefloor or cocktail waitresses or bottle service and there still exists a magic time called happy hour."

New Bars Story 2008

•  "Not too long ago I’d come home from a night of barhopping with ringing ears and smelling of cigarettes. Now half the time I get home reeking of braised calamari and elderflower with an earful of soft jazz. Most of the new watering holes to open this year were restaurants and hotel lobbies with extravagant bar programs and cocktail lists."
• "Now that good drinks are in demand at every new restaurant, bartenders are barhopping from venue to venue."
• "Though hotel lobby bars have traditionally been places to find traditional drinks, now many of them are promoting innovation and eco-cocktails."
• "A different grape spirit, pisco, a brandy from Peru or Chile, is showing up on the menu at dozens of the best bars in the city."
•  "Since sitting quietly and sipping is the new raving until dawn, there isn’t too much point in building new warehouse nightclubs. Instead, a few older spots were freshened up and sometimes renamed."

Hopefully the full story will go online soon for the not-in-SF readers. In the meantime, check out CitySearch's Top 10 New Bars of 2008- which includes a few of them I missed.

San Francisco's Next All-Star Bar

I recently spoke with Erik Adkins (Slanted Door, Flora) who is the bar manager of the soon-to-open Charles Phan (Slanted Door's chef/owner) restaurant next to the Soma Grand building on Mission Street. After much wavering on the name (the code name was "Phantom" at one point, get it), they seem to have settled on Heaven's Dog. That's pretty rock and roll.

Also great is the list of bartenders who've signed on to take shifts at the place:

• Thad Vogler (Slanted Door, Jardiniere, Beretta, the forthcoming Agricole)
• Eric Johnson (Eastside West, Bourbon & Branch, Beretta)
• Jackie Patterson (Orson, Zinnia)
• Jennifer Colliau (Slated Door, Small Hand Foods)
• Jon Santer (Bourbon & Branch, Beretta, Martin Miller's Gin)
• Lane Ford (Beretta, Flora)

The restaurant should be opening in early January. Adkins tells me that they'll keep the drink menu at a reasonable 12 or so drinks "focusing more on execution than on unusual recipes." They'll also have an emphasis on quality ice, with a Kold Draft machine for cubes, plus a freezer dedicated just to ice that they'll use to make spears for tall drinks and chunks for some of the rocks drinks.

Brrr, who's thirsty?

Store and Pour

In the December issue of San Francisco Magazine, I have a story on venues like Taverna Aventine, Nihon, the San Francisco Wine Center, and the Occidental Cigar Club where you can store your poison of choice on-site. Read it online here.

Drinking Through Dosa

On Friday the new location of the San Francisco restaurant Dosa will open for dinner. I had a chance to attend a preview night and managed to drink my way through the entire cocktail menu. It was tough work, but I am a trained professional.

But first: the space. The former bank building has high ceilings, a large open bar and communal table seating area, plus typical restaurant seating. It will remind you of NOPA, a restaurant nearby. It too will be open late. 

The drink list is shorter than at NOPA though, and contains exotic ingredients like "hell flower" tincture, chicory bitters, and curry leaf. (I posted the menu here the other day.) But the drinks that seem like they're going to be really weird really aren't.

There are three creamy drinks on the menu. The Laughing Lassi, with genever and yogurt, ends up tasting similar to a dry carob or soy milk drink. The Bollywood Hills with saffron, orgeat, and allspice is actually a mild and also milky drink. The Juhu Palm with gin, coconut milk, and lime is bright and refreshing though also milky, tasting like a Thai version of a Ramos Gin Fizz. The Juhu was delicious on its own, but I think all three of these drinks are best served alongside spicy food.

There are also spicy drinks- The California pisco-based Bowler has a nice hot bite to it, but not enough to burn. It was my dining companion's first drink and it was a thrilling intro to the menu. The last drink on the menu, the Smoked Cup, combines mezcal with Pimm's and ginger beer, and it's so darn wonderful it is worth the trip to Dosa alone.  I'd also include the Elephant Parade in the spicy drink section, as it has a ton of ginger in it that is nicely tamed and balanced by the cilantro. It was a real surprise because I'm one of those people who hates cilantro. All good here.

Another favorite of mine was the refreshing Batsman, with gin, tea, and ginger beer. It's the kind of drink you wouldn't mind having after you come back from the gym. Or maybe that's just me. Other more classically styled cocktails were the Mood Indigo, which is dominated by bourbon and champagne, the very brightly limey Bengali Gimlet, and the extremely drinkable Faux Swizzle, which is a drink the Mint Julep wants to be. You'd have seven of them before it would occur to you to stop.

All told, this cocktail menu by Jonny Raglin is ambitious, exciting, and very original. The food at Dosa is already much loved, and these drinks are clearly designed to mirror the food while being culinary creations on their own. (Shall we call them unsubservient cocktails?) With this menu, there is no need to switch to wine while dining- you can think of each cocktail as another course.

A Bar Contest You Don't Want to Win

Eater SF hosted a "Douchiest Bar in San Francisco" contest. The winner, unfortunately for them, was Medjool, the rooftop bar in the Mission. Filling out the Top 5 were Matrix Fillmore, Bar None, Americano, and Zeitgeist.

The comments on the original post are priceless.

"It's as if the marina suddenly puked up it's best and brightest in the fields of self-absorption, douchbaggery and cougardom into one consolidated spot... and then poured 1,000 cosmos into the mix."

Oof.

The Craziest New Cocktail Menu in San Francisco

DOSA Fillmore opens on Friday, but the drink menu for the restaurant has been released. The cocktails were created by Jonny Raglin of Absinthe, and they look insane. I can't wait to try them.

Batsman
Martin Miller’s Gin, Darjeeling tea cordial, lemon juice & ginger beer, served over ice with a mint sprig 9

Bowler
Marian Farms bio-dynamic Pisco, mango gastrique, “hell flower” tincture, served up with a lime twist 9

Juhu
Palm DH Krahn Gin, coconut milk, lime juice, Kaffir lime leaf, bird’s eye chili served up with a spanked curry leaf 10

Bollywood Hills
Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka, orgeat syrup, lime juice, allspice dram, served up with pickled mango 10

Elephant Parade
No. 209 Gin, pineapple gomme, ginger, cilantro, seltzer water, served long over ice with a pineapple flag 11

Bengali Gimlet
Tanqueray Rangpur Gin, ‘curried’ nectar, Kaffir lime leaf and lime juice, served up with a wedge of lime 10

Laughing Lassi
Bols Genever, Strauss yogurt, cucumber, grains of paradise, agave nectar, Angostura, served chilled with mint 12

Faux Swizzle
El Dorado Rum, St. Germain Elderflower, chicory bitters, served over crushed ice with a sugar-dusted mint sprig 9

Mood Indigo
Buffalo Trace Bourbon, jackfruit marmalade, Angostura bitters, chilled, topped with Champagne 10

Smoked Cup
Benesin Organic Mezcal, Pimm’s, black cardamon tincture, ginger beer, cucumber & smoked sea salt, over ice 11

Chinaco for Dinner

Last week I attended a dinner at Tres Agaves in San Francisco with Gabriel and Guillermo Gonzalez of Chinaco Tequila. Tres Agaves is hosting monthly distillers' dinners with a different tequila brand each time.

Chinaco is a special tequila brand for a couple reasons. First, it is the only distillery located in Tamaulipas. Until the 1970's, all agave for tequila had to come from the state of Jalisco. Then the area was expanded to allow for more agave, and currently includes Jalisco and areas of four bordering states, plus part of Tamaulipas apart from the rest.

The other reason it's special is because it is cited as the first premium tequila on the US market. In the early 1980's Robert Denton began importing Chinaco and selling it as a high-end product as opposed to the rough spirit it was known as historically. (Some good historical information can be found here and here.)

The distillery closed in the late 1980's and reopened in the early 1990's by the founder's four sons, including Gabriel and Guillermo who were at the dinner. Interestingly, in the past two years the agave for the tequila has been sourced from Atotonilco in the highlands region (Don Julio, Siete Leguas) instead of from Tamaulipas. I'd like to learn more about this- highland agave is much prized but it seems odd to truck in a bunch of it to another agave growing region.

The barrels for Chinaco are also unusual in that they're first used for bourbon, then they're used for scotch whisky before they're shipped to Mexico for use in tequila. Thus they're likely pretty inert, imparting less wood (caramel, vanilla, butterscotch) notes to the tequila than the average barrels.

All in all, an interesting dinner with an educational aspect- and not bad in price, either. $75 includes many margaritas, a tasting of the night's range of tequilas, a three-course dinner, and tax and tip. Dinners are on the third Thursday of the month. The schedule for next month should be on the website soon.

Update: Here is the upcoming schedule:

December: Don Julio
January: Fortaleza
February: Corazon
March Arette
April: 7 Leguas
May: Corralejo

Saturday Events in San Francisco

Two events in the Bay Area this Saturday November 22 worth checking out:

Elixir's 5/150 Party:

The celebrations kick off November 22^nd at noon with a daytime party to celebrate the 5^th anniversary of Mr. Ehrmann’s proprietorship, featuring a Celebrity Chef Barbeque with Mission District culinary dignitaries Justin Deering (Conduit) and Scott Youkilis (Maverick).

Wristbands to enjoy the feast will sell for $10 and the funds raised from the BBQ will go to a new Distressed Bartender Fund to be established with the local chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild (USBG), for Guild members who cannot work because of accidents or injuries and lack of insurance.

Other activities for the day include a sidewalk sale for local Mission charities, a 1pm toast to the 150^th anniversary (with the Clampers!), a “Blue Blazer” cocktail demonstration (at 2PM), games, raffles, giveaways and more.

Hangar One/St. George Spirits' Holiday Party and Open House:

After months of hard work in our holiday workshop, we have found the solution for this year's holiday shopping gloom: a Holiday Open House! Seriously, shopping while eating and drinking is a lot more fun than waiting outside in the cold for a department store to open.

Like always, the stills will be running most of the day, allowing you a rare opportunity to see the process up close with a live distillation. Entrance will include 3 lil' cocktails, our spirits (including the new Hangar One Spiced Pear Vodka release), and the iced vodka luges. Music and food will be supplied throughout the day to keep everyone upright.

To make the shopping even easier (and tastier), our friends, who just happen to run some of the best specialty food companies around, will be there to sample and sell their wares: Recchiuti Confections with truffles and chocolates; June Taylor Jams, with amazing jams, preserves, and syrups; Boccalone with salumi, cured meats, and all things pork; and La Cocina, with a variety of sweet treats made with organic ingredients.

All of our delicious spirits and holiday gift packs will be available for sampling and sale, naturally, including the St. George Absinthe Verte and the Hangar One Spiced Pear Vodka.

Finally, we are once again providing shuttle service between the West Oakland BART station and the Alameda Main street ferry building to and from the distillery. Yes, it's free --- just get on!

BART Shuttle service begins at 12:30pm and continues at 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm with the last pick-up at 4:30pm. From the ferry at 1:45pm and 4:15pm.

Will-call tickets will be available in the distillery store starting today and by phone for $30. Call us at 510.864.0635 to reserve your spot. We sold out last time so don't wait!

Tasting tickets to try both the Absinthe Verte and De Profundis (20-year aged Pear Brandy) are $10.

Entry, if not sold out, will be $40 at the door.

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 from 1pm to 6pm
St. George Spirits/Hangar One Distillery
Entry Fee is $30 in advance, $40 at the door.
This is a 21 and over event. Please bring your picture ID!

Wines' Wine Picks Win

In last week's battle to see what paired best with food- wine, beer, or cocktails, wine came out the winner. In particular, the wines chosen by Emily Wines, Master Sommelier at Fifth Floor Restaurant in San Francisco, beat out the beer and cocktails pairings by other local experts as voted on by the diners in attendance.

I was rooting for cocktails, but from all accounts it was a close race. Congratulations to Ms. Wines. My spies who attended spoke:

"It was excellent-  Friendly, well organized, great service."

"The food was divine, spirit selections from all three experts were spot on, and the company around the table perfect. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, I know I did. Wine took the evening, Emily's pairings were awesome. However, Dave (beer) and Jacques were right there with her, I think only a point or two ever separated them."

I also got word that the next "Three on Five" competition will take place Wednesday, December 17th. There will likely be different pairing experts competing this time- sake? scotch? champagne? We'll know closer to the event date.

Glossy Booze: November Edition

Glossy Booze is a round-up of cocktails and spirits stories in magazines.

Men's Journal has this story on the increasing popularity and price of bourbon, along with some recommendations by Wayne Curtis, a few recommended brands of merlot, and a review of The Wettest County in the World.

The December issue of Men's Journal is also out, and has a recipe for the Midnight Manhattan,  a mention of Palo Santo Marron as a good winter brew, an endorsement of Three Thieves Bandit wine in the box as "adventure-ready wine," and a list of "Top Shelf Hooch" including Bluecoat Gin, Vodka 14, Nouvelle-Orleans Absinthe, and Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey.

In San Francisco's 7x7 Magazine, Jordan Mackay lists some steak-pairing red wines, and feature's Jennifer Colliau's Small Hand Foods, her vintage syrup business.

In Details, Rob Willey has a story on eggnog, with some recommended products to put in it- Remy Martin CROP cognac, Old Forrester Signature 100-proof bourbon, Brugal Anejo rum, and El Dorado 15-year-old rum.

Esquire is also on the rum kick, with David Wondrich telling us about how rum ages faster in the hot environments, and recommends a few to try: Clement Cuvee Homere, Angostura 1824, and English Harbour 10-year-old Reserve.

And finally, Bon Appetit has a slew of stories: A recipe for the Algonquin Bar Punch, some suggested champagnes, a fun list on what drinks cost around the world, a recipe for Christmas Caipirinhas (with ginger, ginger beer, and mint added to the usual mix), and a whole vintage cocktail party feature with food and old-style drinks.

Also from the Bon Appetit website, check out these pictures of bartenders in New York making the Blue Blazer.

SF Event: Beattie Book Launch

If you live in SF and are planning on buying Scott Beattie's book, the time and place to do it is November 3 at Cantina. Hopefully the drinks served will be ones from the book, as Beattie cranks out some seriously delicious cocktails.

Artisanal Cocktails: Drinks Inspired by the Seasons from the Bar at Cyrus
by Scott Beattie
$40 admission, includes cocktails and an autographed copy of the book
Monday, November 3rd, 6 - 10pm
Cantina
580 Sutter Street

for more information, please visit:

http://scottbeattiecocktails.com/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/03/WI6S1385C0.DTL

Whisky Wonderland

Finally I'm getting around to a wrap-up of WhiskyFest in San Francisco.

The event itself was well-run, not too crowded, and with plenty of food out to keep people relatively sane (or it seemed like it anyway, I smartly ate a huge burrito just before coming so that I wouldn't need to stop drinking to eat). As I did last year, this year I stayed on the floor the whole time, missing all of the talks, and instead talking to people I know and distillers and brand reps at the booths.

In the last half hour though, people got a little wild. I've heard from multiple people that the New York event is like this, a little less professional, with some yahoos screaming for the oldest expression on the table instead of doing a proper tasting through the line. It wasn't so bad here, just a bit intensely silly at the last minute. Overall, a wonderful event.

So, on to my favorite selections of the night. These are not the best in the room, of course, but the ones I found interesting.

• Bruichladdich Infinity- the only Bruichladdich I tried (it's a crowded table most of the night), was just plain damn delicious.
• Glenmorangie Signet- chocolate whisky? Yes.
• Dewar's Signature- too expensive to be so drinkable. I have a bottle at home and I had a dram here to conserve it.
• Yamazaki 18- Same here, except I don't have a bottle at home. I know what it tastes like and I drank it because I could.
• Old Pulteney 17- I like this expression better than the 21. I could drink the heck out of this.
• A. D. Rattray (independent bottler)'s Glencadam 1990. Cask strength yet light and zesty.

In the last 10 minutes, I finally ran into Eden Algie, the Macallan brand ambassador who was working that table as well as the charity table. There, they were selling tastes of single-bottle (not single-malt or single-barrel, but single-bottle) creations by current and past Master Distillers from the brand. We did a too-fast tasting of the four in the final minutes, pouring the last dram just after the event ended. Tasting notes weren't important, as nobody else is going to get to taste or buy that whisky ever. But umm, there was some great stuff.

See you there next year.

The backyard bartender

Tablehopper gets the scoop on a new bar/restaurant coming from Thad Vogler: Bar Agricole. Slated to open in San Francisco in March 2009, it will feature all non-commercially distilled artisan spirits. (Plus food and wine, if you care.)

I haven't yet made it to Camino, where he's been since opening Beretta (he gets around), but he runs a similar cocktail program there. Vogler has been moving in an increasingly local/sustainable direction, without sacrificing drink quality but increasingly limiting drink options.

And now some of those options will be home grown. Tablehopper reports that he'll have patio garden for herbs and greens used in the food and drinks. I wonder if it will look like this:

Wilding during Whisky Week

This is whisky week in San Francisco, so there are a ton of events happening with distillers and brand ambassadors all over the city. Last night, I made it to four of them.

I started off at Swig, meeting Sam Simmons of Balvenie. I tried the Doublewood, the 12-year-old limited edition for Dave Stewart's 40th anniversary at the company, and the new Balvenie 17-year-old rum cask.

Next up was Rye's cocktail competition with Michter's rye. I got roped in to judging the event at the last minute, but it's not so bad- it ensures both a seat and a steady supply of drinks. The first-place winner was a bartender from Rye (can't remember her name...), second place was Josh Harris from Pier 23 (with balsamic vinegar and cherries- my favorite of the night) and third place was Scott Baird from 15 Romolo.

Then half the bar relocated to Bourbon & Branch, where Jackie Patterson was guest bartending. I stayed for one drink, as the effects of judging 7 drinks in an hour and a half were starting to take hold.

A group of us then headed to Elixir, where the guest bartender was John Glaser of Compass Box whisky. He was swinging around his magnum of Peat Monster and towards 1AM when there were only five of us in the bar, pressuring us to drink more so he had something to do. I think this was my first time ever doing shots of single-malt. It was good stuff, but I hope it's the last time I do that.

I would post pictures, but it seems I left my camera in one of the bars.

Now open

This week was big for openings and pisco cocktails. I hit up La Mar early in the week, where I had some pisco drinks and lunch, then the new bar called Pisco just for pisco drinks. This bar was supposed to open in August (I wrote a story about it for that issue of San Francisco Magazine) but they had problems with handicapped accessibility due to the gradient slope of the street outside. (Umm, San Francisco has hills that are kind of hard to work around.) The place was looking groovy and more modern than I expected, but the drinks were lovely- I had the Pisco Punch and the Sideways Sour.

Another bar probably opening this week and also serving a Pisco Punch is Taverna Aventine in the Jackson Square district. The cocktail is on the menu as part of a classic drinks program paying homage to the bar's location right next to two of the most important historical drink sites in SF: Hotaling Street and the Bank Exchange.

The event I attended was a pre-opening party so it's hard to say how it will come together, but the Vintage 415 guys tend to do a good job with this sort of thing.

I also visited the new Nettie's Crab Shack, a big bright space in the Marina District that has no pisco drinks on the menu at all. They're doing a cocktail program with some interesting twists like a Cape Cod made with real cranberries, but they weren't serving them at the pre-party I attended. I'll have to hit them up a second time.

The bar at La Mar

Yesterday I had a chance to check out La Mar Cebicher'ia Peruana, the fancy new Peruvian restaurant opening up on Pier 1 1/2 in San Francisco. Gorgeous space, delicious food. But you don't come to Alcademics to read about food.

The drink menu is all about pisco, listing 12 pisco-based cocktails. It includes the Pisco Sour and Pisco Punch, of course, but a lot more creative drinks as well. Several of the drinks include chicha morada (a purple corn juice that looks and tastes a bit like purple grape juice), and many of them include passion fruit.

There are some interesting combinations on the list, including the Chilcano de Pisco that's just pisco, ginger ale, and angostura bitters, the Capitan Francisco with pisco, sweet vermouth, and bitters, and the Chicharrita made with pisco, Drambuie, chicha morada, and orange juice. There is also an imitation Cosmopolitan and Bloody Mary in the mix.

I'm not sure how they make their Pisco Punch or the gomme syrup for it, but for the Pisco Sour they throw it in a blender for a brief second to get it nice and frothy, then double-strain it into a glass without ice.

I noticed that they're using BarSol Pisco in the well, and have dozens of bottles of Pisco Vina de Oro on the top shelves. (I haven't tried it yet- could be a paid promotion, could be the good-looking bottle, could be tasty stuff.) There are many other brands of pisco on the shelf, but I forgot to ask the total number.

I went there with Victoria Damato-Moran, who will be the day lead bartender when they open full-time next week. I love that this place has a separate bar area from the restaurant where Victoria will be working, and hope that it won't be chock full of people eating when they should focus on drinking. There's plenty of good stuff to drink there.

SF Whiskyfest events

Can now be found here. A lot more have been added since I last posted.

Is it December yet?

These days it's not unusual to receive a press release about a new cocktail on the menu at a bar, and I applaud this. That's why I go to bars, after all, and tempting new drinks are tempting. But last week I received a release from Clock Bar in San Francisco that's odd because:

1. The full recipes are included.
2. None of the drinks are on the menu yet.
3. One of them won't be on the menu until December, when blood oranges come into season. And of course it looks like the one I most want to try.

The press release clearly states of the recipes  "you are invited and welcome to share and publish." So I guess I will.

CUNNINGHAM by Marcovaldo Dionysos
In memory of Johnny Cunningham (1957-2003)
    1 1/2 oz. Johnny Walker Black
    1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
    1/2 oz. fresh blood orange juice
    1/2 oz. Benedictine
    1/4 oz. cherry brandy
Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with brandied cherries and a flamed blood orange twist.

"Johnny Cunningham was one of the finest fiddlers the world has ever  seen. Some say he played so fast only dogs could hear him. This is my tribute to him."

Maybe it's just the Benedictine/cherry/scotch combo getting me stirred up, but the drink sounds bananas. I can't wait to try it. Could someone please hurry up with the global warming thing so that the blood oranges come earlier this year? Thanks.