#chivasregal #singlemalt #scotch #scotchwhisky #scotchyscotchscotch #bourbon #kentuckybourbon #irishwhiskey #ryewhiskey #whisky #whiskey #whiskyporn #instawhisky #liquidgold #whiskygram #instadrink #instabooze #cheers #Slainte #kanpai #nowdrinking #booze #alcohol #drinkporn #viski #whisky_droid #drinksup #rittenhouserye #wildturkeyrarebreed #oldfashioned

2 oz. rye whiskey (Rittenhouse Bonded)

1 oz. Etter Christmas Plum liqueur

1/4 oz. St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram

3 dashes Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas' Own Decanter bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass.

Today I finally managed to track down a bottle of Rittenhouse Bonded rye (here's to you, Julio's Liquors of Westborough, Mass), and along with it a bottle of Christmas Plum Liqueur, from Etter, the noted Swiss distiller of fruit liqueurs. Rounding out the day's purchases was a 200ml bottle of The Bitter Truth's Jerry Thomas' Own Decanter Bitters, a recreation (minus the poisonous Virginian Snakeroot) of famed 19th century barkeep Jerry Thomas's proprietary tincture.

As luck would have it, all of these ingredients work splendidly together, as I discovered after mixing this cocktail that I'm now calling the Frogtown Hollow, in honor of our favorite fuzzy muppet, Emmett Otter, and his ragtag crew of Jug-Band aficionados. The clove-forward profile of the Jerry Thomas bitters pairs especially well with the allspice and spiced plum liqueurs and stands up nicely to the 100-proof Rittenhouse rye. The combination of clove, cinnamon, and allspice notes makes this cocktail quite redolent of the holiday season, and hence the nod to Emmet Otter (here's to you, Jim Henson).

I'll spare you a photo of my next improvised cocktail, mercifully unnamed, which consisted of the following:

1.5 oz. Old Overholt rye

1/2 oz. Rittenhouse rye

1/2 oz. maraschino liqueur

1/2 oz. Christmas plum liqueur

3 dashes Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters

1 dash raspberry syrup (Monin)

absinthe rinse

Stirred with ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

Actually, it's quite tasty, if you can handle the extreme liqueur-heavy sweetness. The raspberry syrup was probably a bit over-the-top, I admit, but alas, I'm a little buzzed and flying by the seat of my pants here. And did I mention the absinthe rinse? Oh, I guess I did.

In all seriousness, this is not a bad drink, but I would definitely dial back the maraschino should I ever venture to make this again. All told, the cocktail at the top of this post is the one to remember, so I'll stop writing about its drunken awkward stepchild and let you get back to whatever it was you were doing.

A creation by Elliot Blake as part of his Make 100 Cocktails project. The drink's name is inspired by my series of Knifetank games and features Fernet Branca as a key ingredient.

Find more about Elliot's project here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402063127/make-100-cocktail...

Play our Knifetank iOS game here: itunes.apple.com/us/app/knifetank-the-hauntening/id925146...

(or in the web here: knifetanks.com/kt2/index.html )

A creation by Elliot Blake as part of his Make 100 Cocktails project. The drink's name is inspired by my series of Knifetank games and features Fernet Branca as a key ingredient.

Find more about Elliot's project here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402063127/make-100-cocktail...

Play our Knifetank iOS game here: itunes.apple.com/us/app/knifetank-the-hauntening/id925146...

(or in the web here: knifetanks.com/kt2/index.html )

A creation by Elliot Blake as part of his Make 100 Cocktails project. The drink's name is inspired by my series of Knifetank games and features Fernet Branca as a key ingredient.

Find more about Elliot's project here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402063127/make-100-cocktail...

Play our Knifetank iOS game here: itunes.apple.com/us/app/knifetank-the-hauntening/id925146...

(or in the web here: knifetanks.com/kt2/index.html )

I found this recipe in a comment left on Jamie Boudreau's excellent blog, Spirits and Cocktails. Created by Alex Smith, it was apparently one of five finalists in the Hotel Monteleone Cocktail Contest held back in 2009. As soon as I saw "bitter orange marmalade" paired with rye I knew I had to make this, and I was not at all disappointed. It's definitely on the sweeter side of the cocktail spectrum but the bitterness of the marmalade acts as an interesting counterpoint to the sweetness. I added a dash of cherry bitters because it seemed like a natural fit but otherwise followed the recipe as written. This is quite a nice drink, indeed.

1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse Bonded Rye

1/2 oz Benedictine

1/2 oz Cherry Heering

1 oz fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice

1/2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice

1 Tbs bitter orange marmalade

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1 dash Fee's cherry bitters

Muddle marmalade and lime juice, add rest of ingredients, shake with ice, and double strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with a wide swath of grapefruit zest (or, in my case, narrow strips of both grapefruit and lime).

Source: Alex Smith (via this comment on Jamie Boudreau's blog).

Butler is a 20-seat cocktail bar on Mody Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. It's not a speakeasy, because there are no pretensions nor passwords nor prohibitions needed to be a patron. It's a drinkeasy, because everything goes down as smooth as Cary Grant in wingtips.

initially tasted at room temp (~70F)

rough. alcohol in the nose and mouth. unsophisticated, but somewhat balanced. interestingly enough it's nicely layered, but not all too complex.

mellows out with a splash, but fiery on ice.

My Old-Fashioned's new DNA: three bitters by Germany's Bitter Truth (Mole! Cinnamon! Some Supreme Distillation!) with Rittenhouse rye, to ease some of the sweetness. That's modern talking.

Seth's 1974 is a tasty drink: Rittenhouse rye, Carpano Antica, Aperol, orange bitters