Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week’s Cocktail, The Fix?

I’m not sure of the name yet. Please help.

Well. At least it looks pretty.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. And regrettably, I haven’t finished my homework for this column. I’m working on a new cocktail for the fall menu, but I’m not entirely satisfied with how it’s going. Let me show you the work in progress and ask for your suggestions. Here’s the recipe as it stands so far:

The Fix

1 oz Sazerac Rye

1 oz Cynar

½ oz Chambord

½ oz lemon juice

2-3 shakes Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients, then strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a flamed rosemary sprig.

This cocktail comes from my love of one of my favorite liquor pairings: rye whiskey and Cynar. [Rebecca here, I LOVE CYNAR TOO! I had it in Rome and it is my favorite and nobody else in the house will drink it, too bitter, so MORE FOR ME!]

I was introduced to this combo back when I worked at The Spotted Owl, and I’m still infatuated with it. Don’t panic when someone tells you Cynar is made from artichokes. That’s just the foundation. This amaro is complex, bittersweet, and somehow interlaces with dark, peppery rye whiskey in a way that sends shivers down my spine. A shot of Cynar and Sazerac is my second-favorite way to start a shift (right behind a slug of Fernet Branca).

I had intended to expand that lovely little shot into a full cocktail for fall — something savory and rich, a Thanksgiving cocktail, something to fill the gap between Halloween and New Year’s. But distractions from that core mission kept pulling me away from the drink’s core concept until I finally ran out of time. This final result seems right, but I still want to fiddle with the ratios and garnish. And the name. This cocktail's name absolutely needs work.

Let’s start with the rye whiskey. We have some orphans in our liquor room right now — some stunning bottles from Archer Eland Whiskey. Wendy Peveich, the master distiller, created some glorious rye whiskeys with beautiful floral notes and bold pepper finishes. They’re delicious. They’re amazing. They’re 126 proof. Even after mixing, they read as hot and ethanol-forward. I badly want to feature this beautiful liquor in a cocktail, but I need to spend a few weeks coaxing out its charms into a drink most customers can enjoy.

Then there’s the plum shrub. We made up a delicious plum shrub from the leftover fruit after a wine dinner earlier in the year. It was tart, nuanced, and felt like the perfect way to capture fall flavors. Plums are underappreciated in American cuisine, and they’re much more interesting than cranberries. Then I was reminded that the wine dinner we hosted was in July … and that plum shrub was well past its prime. I’m tempted to buy some prune juice and try to recreate that shrub someday. But I’m out of time now.

There’s also the issue of bitters. We have some pretty wild bitters lurking in Hemingway’s cabinet. I’m a little obsessed with a bottle of Scarborough Bitters someone gave us — that’s “Scarborough” as in “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme flavored”, if you were wondering. I’ve been dying to find a proper application for them. Unfortunately, this cocktail isn’t it. Good old Angostura bitters, with its classic baking spice notes, is the way to go here.

Finally, the name. The Spotted Owl cocktail that inspired me to make this drink was called the “Whiskey Fix.” “Fix” is a pretty generic cocktail name, usually for whiskey-and-grenadine drinks. I haven’t tried grenadine in this drink yet, but I’m considering it as I type. (Yes, developing this drink feels like a constant stream of “Look! Squirrel!” moments.) I’m opening the floor to the comments to help me find a better name.

Let’s talk (current) ingredients:

Here are some of the bottles I was playing with. That’s black pepper-infused vodka on the far right. It didn’t make the cut.

Sazerac Rye: Sazerac is my go-to rye whiskey; I love me a Sazerac cocktail dearly. A denser, more peppery rye like Rittenhouse would be better here. Don’t use bourbon or Irish whiskey here; the sweetness won’t cooperate with the rest of the ingredients. A blended Scotch like Monkey Shoulder would be interesting.

Cynar: Non-negotiable. If you love whiskey, go get some. You’ll thank me later.

Chambord: This is occupying the space that the plum shrub would have gone into. I’m using crème de mûre in the photo, but Chambord is similar and probably easier for most readers to get. Crème de cassis or homemade grenadine would both be options. Don’t use Rose’s Grenadine. Please don’t tell me you have any of that bright red goo in your home. I respect you more than that.

Lemon Juice: Acid to balance the Chambord/creme de cassis/grenadine/what have you. In a moment of desperation, I asked AI what to make of this pile of ingredients. It suggested grapefruit juice instead of lemon juice. Grapefruit juice is terrible in this cocktail. Never trust AI to write a cocktail.

Angostura bitters: Or maybe cocoa bitters? With some orange bitters? Sigh. I need an extra week or two to work on this.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make this drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. (You have NO IDEA how flattered I am when one of you lot takes me up on this offer.) We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!