Booze Pairings: Dental Work

Yesterday I had some dental work, which involved four large needles entering my jaw.  Sometime after dinner, which involved me comically trying to open my mouth and chew when half my tongue and lower lip were numb, the local anesthetic started wearing off and a decent amount of pain ensued, probably more from the shots than the drilling.  I considered ibuprofen but decided to use alcohol instead to alleviate my pain (important note: I was not given anything but local anesthetic.  Do not drink with real pain killers).

So what is a good drink to follow up dental work?  A couple of criteria come to mind.  First, it must be strong.  No Pimm's Cups here.  Second, given the discomfort and partial numbness remaining in my tongue, it's probably not worth the expense or effort to concoct something real high end or fancy.  I wasn't in the mood to spend to much time juicing, muddling, or making syrups anyway.  For high amounts of alcohol with low cost and effort, to families of cocktails come to mind.  First is the martini family.  Second is the Manhattan family, which I opted for, making a Monte Carlo.

Monte Carlo Cocktail

Ingredients

2 ounces of rhy (Old Overholt)

0.75 ounce of Benedictine

2 dashes of Peychaud's bitters

Directions

Stir ingredients with ice and garnish with a cherry.

Outcome

This pretty well hit the spot.  While still quite boozy, the Benedictine made it a bit smoother than a Manhattan's sweet vermouth would.  The bitters kept in in balance and the cherry, well the cherry looked nice.  The cocktail did its job by blunting the pain in my jaw and tasted pretty good in the process.  Cheers!