Jim and Rocky’s next victim — my friend Tatsu Oiye, professional drinker and fellow member of the board of the Los Angeles Cocktail Community (we help organize monthly social, networking and educational gatherings for local bartenders). Tatsu’s shift was at 320 Main, easily the best bar in Orange County and one of my very favorite bars in all of southern California. Tatsu had it somewhat harder than the rest of us — 320 was closed to the public that night, and the entire restaurant was filled with bartenders, cocktail enthusiasts and friends. Really, who will abuse you more heinously than all your closest friends and fellow drinkers? Hats off to Tatsu for remaining alive and standing under fire.

NEENER NEENER
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1-1/2 ounce Dos Maderas PX Rum
3/4 ounce Ramazzotti Amaro
1 egg
dash simple syrup
dash Angostura Bitters
float Green Chartreuse

Combine the first five ingredients in a shaker and dry shake WITHOUT ICE for at least 20 seconds. Add ice and shake to chill. Double strain into a Irish coffee glass and float with green Chartereuse.

My buddy Ron Dollete of LushAngeles.com stands next in the firing line. He did a fine job behind the bar, although was accused of being “cocky,” and bore his annoying tasks manfully without resorting to rolling his eyeballs at Jim and Rocky or saying, “Oh, you bastards…” Good shaker face, too.

While Jim’s Martini featured a dash of his beloved Ardbeg in the mixing glass along with everything else, this one features his trademark Ardbeg float. While not exactly red, given its name this drink could be a contender for the house cocktail of House Targaryen. Dracarys!

DRAGON’S BLOOD
by Jim Romdall, Vessel, Seattle

1 ounce Martin Miller’s Gin
3/4 ounce Green Chartreuse
1/3 ounce Dry Sack Sherry
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 dash absinthe
Ardbeg scotch whisky float
Lime twist

Combine the first 5 ingredients with ice in a mixing glass, stir for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drizzle a barspoon or so of Ardbeg on top of the drink as a float, garnish with a lime twist and serve.

I love three-ingredient cocktails.

Heck, I love two-ingredient cocktails, but they’re a bit rarer. There’s just something magical about the alchemy of putting just two or three things together and sipping the results of the alchemy. Plus, on a practical level … well, I do love me the 9- or 10-ingredient tiki cocktails, but I’m not sure I’d want to be knocking them out all night (says the lazy bastard who lives inside me).

When we were hanging out at The Varnish for the Left Coast Libations book release party a couple months ago, guest bartender Anu Apte of Rob Roy in Seattle made one for us and for book co-author Ted Munat that wasn’t actually in the book, or on the bar menu that evening. Always willing to try something new (and always agreeing with Wesly when he says, “What the world needs now is more rye cocktails”), I said I was game.

“It’s called a ‘TLC,’” Anu said. “I came up with it just for Ted.” *

“Sounds lovely!” said I. “Does the name stand for the usual?”

“Nope, said she. “‘Ted Likes Chartreuse.’”

Marleigh, Wes and me: “Awww!”

She may have come up with it for Ted, but it’s also for all the Teeming Millions of us out there who also like (or love) Chartreuse.

TLC
(by Anu Apte, Rob Roy, Seattle)

2 ounces rye whiskey.
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse.
1/4 ounce apricot liqueur (Apry or Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot).

Combine with cracked ice, stir for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Garnish with an orange peel.

* – Conversational details which I attempt to recall from a time during which I have been imbibing may not be exactly historically accurate, but it’s more or less the gist of it.

Today’s cocktail is an original from New Orleans bartender Chris McMillian of Bar UnCommon, and it’s my favorite of his. “I don’t really come up with that many originals,” he said (although I’ve had several), “but I think this one might be the best yet.”

It’s deceptively simple — only two ingredients in a simple proportion — but what a pair of ingredients … oh so complex.

First off, Old Raj Gin. There are two that you’ll see on your spirits store shelves if you’re lucky — one at 92 proof and the other at 110, the more common of the two and the one you want. Despite its alcoholic heft it’s quite smooth and has no burn, juniper present but not overly forward, plenty of citrus and earthy spices. The straw-yellow tint comes from a bit of saffron among the botanicals, but the saffron is very subtle and understated.

Next, our old friend Chartreuse of the green variety, an herbal knockout also at a hefty 110 proof. The alcohol-by-volume in these combined ingredients is, as you may have noticed, 55%, hence the name of the drink. These two powerful ingredients combine with that delightful cocktailian alchemy into a very well-balanced, highly sippable drink in which the herbal onslaught of the Chartreuse is stretched, rounded and balanced by the gin and its own herb-and-spice profile. What you might think would be over the top is anything but, and might be just the thing to offer a Martini drinker who might be looking for something a bit more exotic for his or her next drink.

You knocked this one out of the park, Chris … thanks!

The 55º Cocktail
(by Chris McMillian, Bar UnCommon, New Orleans)

1-1/2 ounces Old Raj Gin, blue label.
3/4 ounce green Chartreuse.

Combine with ice in a mixing glass and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

Here’s one of many fantastic drinks I had during my first evening at Cure back home in New Orleans, finally getting there about four months after they opened.

This is a drink from the book by Cure bartenders Kirk Estopinal and Maks Pazuniak [currently out of print but soon-to-be-reissued] which was created by Kyle Davidson from The Violet Hour in Chicago. It appears on Cure’s side menu, not the main one, and is a must-get. Again based on half-spirit, half-amaro, all the ingredients play off one another so well. It’s absolutely out of this world. It’s another one of those drinks that let the bitterness of the amaro be more assertive but still keep it in check (Cynar is relentlessly bitter, and one of the only amaros I don’t drink by itself). The description from the book tells you exactly what to expect:

Picture yourself in the limestone-walled courtyard of an Italian villa off the coast of the Riviera. You are surrounded by fragrant herbs and flowers, and the sea air is blowing gently. The sun is bright, but it’s not hot, and you have nothing to do all day but relax and savor the sensations all around you. Drinking this cocktail is kind of like that if somebody suddenly punched you in the stomach just as you were begining to doze off in the sun. In a good way.

Um … yeah you right.

THE ART OF CHOKE
(by Kyle Davidson, The Violet Hour, Chicago)

1 ounce white rum.
1 ounce Cynar.
1/8 ounce fresh lime juice.
1/8 ounce rich Demerara sugar syrup (2:1).
1/4 ounce green Chartreuse.
Sprig of mint.

Bruise the mint sprig with the other ingredients in a mixing glass. Stir with ice for half a minute, then strain over fresh ice into an Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with another mint sprig.