Summer Herb Bouquet
I’ve had Aperol cocktails on the back of my mind since I was asked about them not terribly long ago. That, combined with leftover freshly-squeezed orange juice from this past weekend’s party and a curiosity to play with basil flowers as a garnish begot this. I think there’s too much Aperol in this recipe (drop it to ¾ oz, but that may require an adjustment of either the gin or the St. Germain, and I haven’t remade it yet), but it’s on the verge of being a lovely summer drink.

1½ oz Hayman’s Old Tom gin (if you don’t have Old Tom, use 1¼ oz of a plymouth-style—including Plymouth brand—gin and ¼ oz simple syrup)
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz St. Germain
2 dashes aromatic bitters (I used Bitter Truth, Angostura might actually be better)
2 leaves fresh basil (I used the cinnamon basil from my back yard, same for the flowers below, but I expect any variety will work, if slightly differently)

Shake all of the above on ice, double-strain (the second strainer should be mesh, not just a julep: it’s catching the herb bits) into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice, garnish with a couple of basil flowers.

Attention

As before, but this time with basil flowers as a garnish. (Guess why those were floating around…)

Old Fashioned
Jacob Briars and Sebastian Reaburn have a lot to say about the proper ways to make an Old Fashioned. This isn’t their way, it’s my way.

3 oz Rittenhouse 100 Rye
1 sugar cube
liberal dashes Angostura bitters

Drop the sugar cube in a mixing glass, soak it with Angostura bitters, add one barspoon room temperature to warm water, muddle the sugar cube into the bitters. Add the rye, fill the glass halfway with ice, and stir assertively but not aggressively for at least 90 seconds. Strain (use a julep, please) into an Old Fashioned glass with a couple of good ice cubes in it. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Toronto
I learned this at Deep Ellum (the bar in Boston with the US East Coast’s best Manhattan variation list, rather than the city in Texas for which the former is named), and I’m pretty sure what I do is closer to what I had there than Jamie Boudreau’s recipe of the same name, which has both too much sugar and too little Fernet for my palate.

3 oz Old Overholt Rye
1 oz Fernet-Branca

Stir on ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a smacked mint leaf (I used spearmint from the back yard, but any old thing will do, the larger the leaf the better—I picked the one pictured here without light).