Recipe

• 2oz Bourbon (I used Rowan’s Creek)
• .75oz Chambord
• .75oz lemon juice
• Few drops of absinthe
• .5oz full bodied wine (I like Zins or Cabs)
• Mint sprig

Rinse a coupe glass with absinthe. Combine all other ingredients except the wine with a shaker full of ice and shake. Strain into the glass and carefully float the wine on top (by pouring slowly over a barspoon across the surface). Garnish with a slapped mint sprig

About

Soo, this recipe here is one of the first ‘craft cocktails’ I ever made at home and LOVED, back way before my days on Instagram when I would browse cocktail recipes from my Google Reader feed (RIP). This is adapted from the Apothic Dark Sour by the amazing Gastronomista (original recipe on her blog!), and to date, it’s still one of my all time favorite recipes. Adaptations back then were purely out of necessity (since I didn’t have all the ingredients!) but it’s one I’ve since stuck to.

This is a variation of a New York Sour, which is essentially a whiskey sour (whiskey, lemon, sugar) with a float of wine on top. In this recipe, regular sugar is subbed for a berry liqueur, and a spritz of absinthe is incorporated for some added herbal complexity. The end result is an incredible potent cocktail that straddles perfectly between a spirit-forward cocktail and a refreshing “summer-worthy” drink.