What Facebook Is Good For: Booze!

One of my earliest cocktail-related posts described my visit to The Hour, a great Alexandria, Virginia, shop specializing in vintage and vintage-style barware. I don't know when I'll make it back — I'm not in Alexandria all that often — but I've been able to keep up my acquaintance with The Hour through the magic of Facebook.


One of the delights of following The Hour's Facebook feed is the wonderful cocktail recipes they post. Back in January, they cocktail of the day was the Gold Rush, made with Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, bourbon, and fresh lemon juice. Since I had some Canton on hand — I'd sought it out to make Gary Regan's Debonair cocktail — I thought I'd give it a whirl... but when it comes to cocktails, it seems I'm never content to leave well enough alone: I tend to think that wherever bourbon is good, rye is better, and in this case the spiciness of rye seemed a perfect match for the ginger liqueur... so I made my Gold Rush with Michter's Single Barrel:

1 1/2 oz Domaine de Canton
1 oz Michter's Single Barrel Rye
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

That made a delicious drink, but I found myself wanting to bring the whiskey more to the front, so I reversed the proportions of rye and ginger...

1 1/2 oz Michter's Single Barrel Rye
1 oz Domaine de Canton
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

...and this is the version I finally decided to stick with. It's obviously not quite a Gold Rush anymore, and while a quick Google search turns up a number of recipes including rye, Canton, and lemon juice, none is precisely this drink, so I make bold to give it a name myself. Following my earlier punning convention, I hereby dub this... the Sardonic Redhead. So mote it be!