Growing Old Cocktail

2 oz Cynar
1 oz Rye, Rittenhouse 100
1 pn Salt
2 twst Lemon zest (expressed)
1 rinse Pastis, Herbsaint
Instructions

Combine the Cynar, rye and salt in a mixing glass and stir briefly to dissolve the salt. Express the oil from the lemon peels and drop into the mixing glass. Add ice and stir, then strain into an Herbsaint-rinsed cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.

Notes

Full name: Growing Old and Dying Happy is a Hope, Not an Inevitability

Cocktail summary
Posted by Dan on
Created by
Maks Pazuniak, Cure, New Orleans
Year
2009
Is an
authentic recipe
Curator
Not yet rated
Average
4 stars
(20 ratings)
YieldsDrink
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From other users
  • 1/19/17: This was very good. A bitter Sazerac -- I might even prefer it to a Sazerac.
  • Caramel, peanuts, bitterness. Heavy and sophisticated. Edit: tried again with smoked salt. Maybe liked it better with a splash of soda.
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Comments

Drinking this now. Dan, you're not going to like it, I'm afraid. The Herbsaint rinse dominates the nose, but once you're past that, it smells chocolatey... the way a Tootsie Roll smells chocolatey. It's firmly sweet up front with an artificial chocolate flavor (how do you get artificial chocolate out of Cynar + Rye?), and starts to get interesting as the tobacco/bitter flavors of the Cynar take over the finish. 

I think the easy way out might be 3/4 oz of lemon juice. I think something more interesting might be swap the rinse to creme de cassis to try and fix the acidity without acid. 

Smoked salt adds an interesting dimension to this.