Thirsty Thursday - Cocktails with Sherry

Adonis

Not every cocktail needs to be a laborious affair, made with multiple spirits and homemade ingredients. Neither do they always need to be spirit-forward libations packing an alcoholic punch. Sometimes it’s nice to have an easy-drinking, two-ingredient, low-alcohol sipper like the Adonis cocktail. This pleasing drink is made with only sweet vermouth and amontillado sherry, but it is a nuanced and layered concoction all the same.

• 1 1/2 ounces amontillado sherry

• 1 1/2 ounces sweet vermouth

• Garnish: orange peel

Italian Bird

This cocktail is built around the comfortable confines of aged rum and Campari but then is taken in a new direction with fino sherry and demerara syrup

• 1 1/2 ounces aged rum

• 3/4 ounce Campari

• 1/2 ounce fino sherry

• 1/2 ounce demerara syrup

• Garnish: lemon twist

Tootsie Roll

The Tootsie Roll cocktail is a more serious affair than the name implies. Rather than relying on flavored vodka or chocolate syrup to achieve the desired taste, we enlist the intensely sweet, dark, dessert-like Pedro Ximénez sherry. The sherry is tempered by the spicy rye, and the bitters—made from organic toasted cacao nibs with just a hint of oak—impart chocolate notes into the drink without increasing the sweetness.

• 2 ounces rye whiskey

• 1 ounce Pedro Ximénez sherry

• 6 dashes Scrappy’s chocolate bitters

• Garnish: Luxardo maraschino cherry