This was my first Sorel cocktail and this proved to be a potent and pleasing potable (4.5/5 so I'll give it a 5.) I used Busnel Calvados Pays d'Auge and Carpano Antica, along with Elijah Craig Rye. The Sorel's clove/ginger/nutmeg/hibiscus mate well to the calvados, and the depth of the Antica supports it.

It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

Garnish with a lump of coal? I'm not a big coffee (nor chocolate) cocktail fan, but this does sound good. Espresso might work (to enhance the bitter aspect).

Really good. Garnished with lemon peel, the oils are a great match a la a traditional espresso serve. Also feel like this would be great as a flip.

This is truly an excellent, delicious drink that I have taught to several bartenders around the country, always crediting Mr. Hannah of course.  I just noticed that the find.eat.drink website has an entry for Mr. Hannah dated 18 July 2011, (http://www.findeatdrink.com/Index/Drink/Entries/2011/7/18_chris_hannah_…) that offers slightly different proportions:

1.25 oz Gin / 0.75 oz amaro /0.75 oz sweet vermouth / 0.25 oz maraschino liqueur / 2 ds orange bitters

I don't know that 0.66 oz (20 mL) will be all that different than 0.75 oz (22 mL) - perhaps the 20 mL version gives you more of a 50/50 drink (that is, 37 mL gin and 40 mL of the amaro/vermouth. I suppose you could go fully metric, too:

40 mL gin / 20 mL amaro / 20 mL sweet vermouth / 10 mL maraschino

Most of the recipes for this drink I've seen online seem to specify a London dry gin, but I think that an Old Tom gin would have been used when the original Martinez was made, and I think that Hayman's works quite well.

I made two of these last night with the recently released Cynar 70 - they were excellent! This is one of my favorite drinks, and I think I will be making it this way in the future. The increased alcohol content is not noticeable on the palate, but I did feel it. 

Has a Black Lodge to start the evening tonight, so I thought I would try one of these with Michter's single barrel rye instead of the gin. It works but definitely not as good as the original - the gin gives a much cleaner flavor, the whiskey dulls the drink.

With rye, this is close to a Little Italy and quite good as well.

Flavors are nice, but for my palate, this is too sweet as written. Next time I'll play with the proportions a bit, probably increasing the rye to 2 oz. and/or dialing down the St. Germain and Punt e Mes.