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

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.

The Le Mot D’or Cocktail Recipe

An oaky and herbal bourbon cocktail

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Total Time 5 mins

Course Drinks

Servings 1 Drink

Equipment

• Pint Glass
• Bar spoon
• Cocktail Strainer
• Chilled Cocktail Coupe

Ingredients

  

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• 2 oz. Bourbon Basil Hayden’s
• .75 oz. Sweet vermouth Noilly Prat or Dolin
• .5 oz. Maraschino Luxardo
• .25 oz Fernet Branca
• Dash aromatic bitters
• Orange twist Garnish

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!