Modern Classic

Revolver

Set light to the orange peel

Ingredients

60mlBourbonOld Grand-Dad Bonded recommended
15mlCoffee LiqueurTia Maria recommended
2 dashesOrange BittersFee Bros recommended

Make it well

Stir

Directions

1. Add the bourbon, coffee liqueur and orange bitters to a mixing glass with ice. 2. Stir for 20-30 seconds until well chilled. No citrus in this one, so it's stirred. 3. Strain into a chilled coupe or Nick and Nora glass. 4. Cut a swathe of orange peel, hold it skin-side down over the glass and carefully flame it with a lit match to release and ignite the oils, then drop it in. Hold it well clear of yourself and anything flammable while you do this.

Taste

On the nose it's the flamed orange that gets you first, smoky and aromatic before you've tasted anything at all. On tasting it's dark and rich, the bourbon's caramel deepening into roasted coffee from the liqueur, with the orange bitters stopping it turning into pudding. Silky and strong. This is an after-dinner drink and it knows it. Do the flaming bit properly, by the way, it isn't showing off, it genuinely changes the drink.

Origin

The Revolver was created in 2004 by San Francisco bartender Jon Santer at Bruno's, a jazz club in the Mission District, built around a surplus of Bulleit bourbon behind the bar and the structure of a Manhattan, with coffee liqueur standing in for the vermouth. It barely registered with Bruno's crowd at first. It found its real audience after Santer joined the opening team of Bourbon & Branch in 2006, where it became a signature pour in the bar's semi-private Library room, and spread from there into the wider modern cocktail world, where it's now considered a genuine modern classic.

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