Carmen and I were in Charleston over the July 4th weekend visiting some friends and delivering a table that I refinished for them. We had Saturday night dinner reservations, and decided to stop at Proof first to have cocktails. Proof is a mixology bar, where the bartenders obviously pay careful attention to their craft and have a wide array of ingredients on a well varied menu.
Given my challenges in the past with getting the desired result when asking for their best Manhattan, I made my request slightly differently, asking for a Manhattan "off menu," especially since their menu for Manhattans and similar cocktails was already lengthy. I wasn't disappointed.
While my bartender chilled a tumbler (instead of a cocktail glass) with ice, he stirred a mixture of Wild Turkey 101 rye, 2 types of Cardamaro liquor, and St. Germain in a beaker filled with hand-crushed ice. He finished it off with a grapefruit rind twist, which made for a delightful bitter citrus finish. No cherry this time. However nice this cocktail was, this is NOT the one I'm deciding to write about though.
I decided to order my next round from the menu and chose something called the "Smoldering Manhattan."
It is based on Wild Turkey 101 bourbon that has been infused with a smoked Chinese tea called Lapsang Souchong. Instead of sweet vermouth, they used Madeira fortified wine, finished off with Jerry Thomas bitters. The garnish was an orange peel hugging a drunken cherry, served in a tumbler with a few cubes of ice. I have never tasting anything like this! The smokey sweetness was almost like candied bacon (which sounds terrible in conjunction with a cocktail until you try it) slightly offset by the "herbiness" of the tea. The only thing that would have made this better would be if I had a maduro-wrapped cigar to puff with it.
I don't normally try infused bourbons or whiskeys as they tend to be way too sweet, and the base bourbon or whiskey used tends to be of mediocre quality. Wild Turkey 101 is better than average and forms a solid base for experimenting with infusions, but even then I would continue to stick with trying things like tea or herbs that could accentuate the sweetness of the vermouth instead of fruits or berries. The Proof mixologists took a real risk going down the infused path here, but it really worked!