Cynar In Its Own Right: The Undertaker Cocktail

Some spirits seem inextricably tied to others or are otherwise bound by certain drink families.  Sweet vermouth tends to follow bourbon.  Cynar, the bitter, artichoke-based Italian liqueur tends to substitute for sweet vermouth or Campari.  It is as such for the most part bound to what I think of as the Manhattan family of cocktails, which includes Negronis and their ilk as well.  By Cynar is not Campari.  Though similar, it has herbal elements that are unique.  As such, I scoured the internets for recipes that played off the special notes of the Cynar without just making it a substitute.  The result is the horribly named but quite tasty Undertaker Cocktail, which I adapted from a recipe from Kindred Cocktails.

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of bourbon
0.5 ounce of grapefruit juice (I used pink)
0.5 ounce of orange liqueur (Grand Marnier)
0.25 oucne of Cynar
1 dash of orange bitters


Directions
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a grapefruit peal.


Outcome
Before I get into the outcome, I will point out that I changed the original recipe.  I removed the orange twist at the end and replaced it with the grapefruit peal.  I thought having the peal as the same as the drink would improve the internal coherency of the cocktail.  I also added a dash of orange bitters to make the drink a bit more bitter (though Bitter Truth orange bitters are pretty mild).


The Undertaker Cocktail (still hate that name), proved quite good.  The citrus added an interesting twist on the otherwise Manhattanesque cocktail, with the Cynar proving a good bridge between the grapefruit juice and the bourbon.  Other reviews have been mixed.  My wife, who as a general matter isn't a big fan of bitter cocktails, didn't really like it while a friend of mine thought it was excellent.  As a final judgement, I think that this cocktail was a contemplative sipper with a summer flair that I'll no doubt tinker with some more going forward.