The Le Mot D’or Cocktail Recipe: An Earthy Bourbon Cocktail

mot dor cocktail
A delicious combination of oaky bourbon, spicy vermouth, earthy maraschino, and herbal Fernet.

This is the only cocktail I’ve ever come up with where I nailed the ingredients and proportions on the first try. I’ve never changed the recipe at all from the first night I made it! I still grin every time I take that first sip, because the drink is just perfectly what I wanted it to be, a delicious combination of oaky bourbon, spicy vermouth, earthy maraschino, and herbal Fernet.

It’s sort of a Brooklyn variant, but it’s a got a lot of other stuff going on. Plenty enough that I feel comfortable christening it as its own unique drink. I’ve scoured the web and there don’t seem to be any drinks with a similar ingredient set, much to my surprise, so I’m claiming ownership. Why “The Golden Word”? … well, because you’ll have nothing but good things to say when you try it!

Oh, last thing: we’re mainly keeping the drinks in this series to ingredients that aren’t too “out there” and I know this one fails that test a bit, but seriously … spring for a bottle of maraschino and a bottle of Fernet Branca. Neither is super pricey and they’ll last you forever because you rarely need more than half an ounce of them (even a quarter ounce of Fernet can take over a drink that doesn’t have this many strong flavors). Well worth the cash.

This article is a modified and enhanced version of a post that ran on my nightly cocktail blog, DrinkShouts.

le mot de or cocktail recipe

The Le Mot D’or Cocktail Recipe

An oaky and herbal bourbon cocktail
Total Time 5 minutes
Course Drinks
Servings 1 Drink

Equipment

Ingredients
  

Instructions
 

  • Combine all ingredients over ice in a pint glass and stir thoroughly. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Christopher Buecheler

Christopher Buecheler is a novelist, a web developer, an award-winning amateur mixologist, a brewer, a guitarist, a drummer, and an NBA enthusiast. He lives a semi-nomadic life with his wife and two cats, currently residing in Providence, RI. You can learn more at his website, cwbuecheler.com.