This sounds good, but is nearly identical to Phil Ward's Oaxaca Old Fashioned from about 2009. I think the idea of grapefruit bitters is nice. Smoke and citrus go together very well.

Agree, and just saw the post on the Oaxaca Old Fashioned, thanks..I've seen additional variations of it (Paul McGee at Whistler in Chicago). Updated my post to reflect the history, def not trying to upstage or knock off somebody else's cocktail..thanks again-

Whoa! Upside surprise! used orange bitters with agave and squeezed orange peel instead of infusion but worked great!

Quick question - what's the 7.5 mean with the Laird's?

Thanks,

Zachary

Laird's makes a 7 and 1/2 year apple brandy (not applejack - though I believe their bonded is also technically an apple brandy?). I assume that's what they are referring to here.

OK, I figured this out, and curated this somewhat. Naming convention within KC is to simply have the numerical year after the product, so El Dorado 5, Lagavulin 16. I changed the Whistlepig to Whistlepig 10 to reflect that. 

Laird's makes an applejack (GNS + apple brandy) without an age statement. They also make a BIB apple brandy, a 7.5 year and a 12 year. So... either this is meant to be applejack without an age statement, or the ingredient should be changed to apple brandy. I chose to keep the applejack, and removed the age statement. By the way, Food Republic (the source) has it wrong, not the poster.

Quite thin and 'hot'. One bsp of simple syrup helps a lot.

Curated applejack to Laird's 7.5 yo apple brandy as per source reference.

Missing a big ice cube and a stir step in the instructions here. The source article includes the cube but no instructions (but that should be obvious).

Food Republic (website reference) must have giant barspoons. Recipe said, "1 barspoon (.8 ounces)". Not sure what they were going for, might have been half a barspoon which is 1/12 oz and rounds to 0.08 oz. However, the full barspoon/teaspoon makes more sense based on the heat level.

I assumed it was a reporter screwing up 1/8 oz.

I made this last night with 1 tsp (1/6 oz) orgeat (which is the way it appears in the Idlewild recipe set) and both bonded spirits, and it needed a little extra simple to get the heat down and put the bitters into balance more (a fat 1/8 oz/thin 1/4 oz).

Moderated slightly to add instructions and to conform to PDT cocktail book, which specifies Four Roses, rather than the poster's Woodruff Reserve. Any bourbon would do, I'm sure.

Curated slightly - removed (fresh) in the note for the lemon juice - the Style Guidelines are pretty clear that we assume everything is fresh, etc...

Curated slightly - changed the unit on the cilantro to "leaf", and removed the note - we assume fresh ingredients already. Two quick questions: Is the tamarind paste added with the orange juice? It seems to be omitted from the instructions. Cocktails that are not your invention, but are taken from an authoritative source should be marked "Authentic" instead of "Original". I can go back and change these, if you'd like.

Quite good. Made a second as a slight variation, swapping rye for bourbon, Wigle Landlocked Spiced (a spiced rum made with honey instead of sugar) for the honey syrup + pimiento dram, and orange for lemon.

Curated slightly - changed ground cinnamon to cinnamon, with ground in the notes.

I went back and forth on that before I submitted. In the end I felt that ground cinnamon is different than cinnamon (stick). It's a different ingredient actually and if I was scanning the ingredient list and had to go shopping for the cinnamon I'd pick up sticks instead of a jar of ground cinnamon. The "ground" is not the preparation you do at home to the cinnamon (although you could), it's the ingredient itself... Ground Cinnamon.

I'm not going to change it back, but I do feel it should be listed as Ground Cinnamon to avoid confusion.

Dan may chime in here, but from my perspective, it means I get an article in a queue called Ingredients without Pages named "Ground cinnamon", which means I get to write something about how ground cinnamon is different from cinnamon, which doesn't make a lot of sense. It's the same thing that happens with a lot of homemade syrups - people enter them as ingredients instead of attaching a note to the bottom as to how to make their rosepetal and moondust infused jaggery syrup. 

The Notes/Processing box is for just that - you're telling people that the cinnamon should be ground before using. I think, and I think Dan would agree with me, that we should have as few ingredients as we can get away with. But I'll talk to him, and we'll see.

Zachary

Tangy but clean