Fin de Siecle

The name implies that it is the End of The World! But it's just another bitter orange cocktail with Amer Picon. I used Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, which made this drink rival the best Manhattans while using a sub-standard gin. In that sense it might just be the end of the world, or just a beginning.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica used)
• 1/4 oz. Amer Picon (Picon Biere used)
• 1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Beginning of the End (Difford's Guide)

 

This wonderfully balanced cocktail combines some of my favorite things: aged rum, sherry, sweet vermouth and Amer Picon. The rum might not be spiced, but the cocktail is with vermouth, amaro, and flamed orange peel--it makes for the perfect winter sipper.

One of the new ingredients on my bar is George Bowamn dark Caribbean rum from the Bowman Distillery in Fredricksburg, Virginia. This rum has a great small batch, island produced flavor that really works well with American colonial-style cocktails. Rum, sherry, a quinine spirit to ward off malaria--these ingredients, taken from all over the world, came together in America through colonial trade and make up the flavor profile of our nation's cocktail history.

This is a Difford's Guide recipe that plays on the Fin de Siecle, or "End of The World," a classic cocktail with similar proportions of ingredients but uses gin instead of aged rum. 

• 1 1/2 oz. aged dark rum (George Bowman used)
• 1/2 oz. Antica formula vermouth (Cocchi di Torino used)  
• 1/3 oz. Amer Picon (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. Oloroso sherry
• flamed orange peel garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. To flame the orange peel, cut a piece of orange zest. While holding a flame over the drink, squeeze the zest to release oils onto the flame to produce a flash and burnt orange oil fregrance.