What Parfait Amour do you use? I've found that whenever I try to use my Marie Brizzard, it simply ruins everything it touches. Should I solder bravely on and try this? I haven't tried Creme de Yvette, but maybe that would work?

I also moderated the 3 oz of absinthe to the intended 3 dashes. 3 oz would be quite a drink ;)

Dan,

Thanks for the edit on the absinthe ;) I'm not sure which brand of Parfait Amour they used at Teardrop, but there can't be that many available in the market. This had that weird 40's era balance (remember the Bengal?), but was complex and interesting.

This is essentially the Savoy corruption of one of the two original 1900 Trilby cocktails, the Scotch variation in Harry Johnson's 1900 "Bartender's Guide" rather than the Old Tom Gin variant in James Maloney's 1900 "20th Century Guide for Mixing Fancy Drinks." (Although Frederic Yarm's write up on the Trilby lists the drink as being in the 1882 version of Johnson's "Bartender Guide", I don't find it there and assume that the earlier edition was listed in error. The Trilby novel that was the basis for the cocktail was not published until 1894.)

Johnson's 1900 Trilby: "Fill up with shaved ice;
2 dashes of absinthe;
2 or 3 dashes of orange bitters;
2 or 3 dashes of "Parafait d'Amour;"
1/2 wine glass of Scotch whiskey;
1/2 wine glass of Italian vermouth;
Stir up well with a spoon; strain into a cocktail
glass, putting in cherries, and squeeze a piece of lemon
peel on top, then serve."

Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book perhaps inadvertently changed the Parfait d'Amour to equal parts with the Scotch and vermouth. I have made this in the past and even with the whiskey increased by half and the Parfait d'Amour decreased by half, I wasn't happy with it. I should probably go back and try it per the 1900 recipe.

The other Trilby variant with Old Tom gin, Italian vermouth, Creme de Violette, and orange bitters looks more promising. Unfortunately the Savoy Cocktail Book butchered it as well, by omitting the Creme de Violette in the Trilby Cocktail No. 1. Jack Grohusko's 1908 version of the Trilby used Creme Yvette in its place. It is this version that I most want to try with my own recently completed knock off of Creme Yvette (since Yvette hasn't been available for several years.)

Not bad, but the Fernet is pretty strong.  There are better cider recipes out there.

I edited the recipe to correspond to the one in the reference (Food & Wine). The reference's ingredient list neglects the second quantity of lime juice, which the instructions clearly require. I assume the intention is to make a quantity of syrup and store it in the refrigerator, using about 1oz (3 Tbsp) in each cocktail. I also rewrote the instructions to remove any question of copyright infringement.

this is a great utilization of zirbenz! what i really enjoy is a bit of a twist: replacing the bowmore with auchentoshan three-wood (a sweeter scotch), bumping up the zirbenz to 3/4, and eliminating the punt e mes.

But other than that, it's the same drink ;) I'll try your variation and remember my friend George.

Based on our current inventory we used Marie Brizard Apry instead of the peach and it came out great.

Monin blackberry syrup, or Creme de Mure or Creme de Cassis work instead of the shrub.

Meh...  This looked great on paper but ended up feeling a bit rough.  The component parts didn't play off each other as much as just seem to be bouncing around in my mouth trying to figure out what they were supposed to taste like.  Yeah, that description may sound a bit weird, but it's not inaccurate.  Maybe this would be better if shaken and served over crushed ice, like a straight-up tiki drink?  As it is, it's a case of the thing just not coming together all that well.

Upped the Cynar to 1/2 oz.