Great name for a Halloween cocktail, yes?
I owe my friend Brian credit for steering me to this one. It was featured in a snarky, and often hilarious, left-wing political blog he reads regularly called Wonkette. Wonkette has a weekly cocktail feature (doesn’t everyone these days) and this was the drink for last week. The name is a joke on a ridiculous comment made looong ago by Alexander Haig, Chief of Staff under President Nixon, during the Watergate scandal.
That said, few people reading this are old enough to even remember the name Richard Nixon, much less Haig or Watergate, so moving on …
What’s important here is the flavor, and this drink’s got that by the bucketful. Stout and boozy to be sure, but elegant and oh-so-smooth on the tongue. Bourbon, sweet vermouth, chocolate liqueur, and chocolate bitters – a rather sweet combination – are kicked just off center by the bitterness of Campari and Peychauds bitters.
The result is amazingly good. Balanced and delicious. Nothing sinister about it!
Sinister Force
2 oz bourbon
1 oz sweet vermouth – I used Carpano
.25 oz chocolate liqueur (The Wonkette recipe calls for Double Chocolate Vodka and I don’t have any of that – actually never heard of it – so I substituted ordinary De Kuyper Crème de Cacao. And I tried Kahlua another time. Both worked fine.)
.25 oz Campari
2 dashes chocolate bitters (I didn’t have these on the shelf either, so I went to Midtown and bought some.)
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters
Shake this with ice to get it very, very cold and serve straight up or, the way I like this sort of drink, in a rocks glass with one big cube. Or two.