If there is one thing I really missed this year, it was traveling. We had plans to go to some very cool places this summer, and of course they all had to be scrapped. It’s hard to get too upset about it considering that people losing their lives and livelihoods. But every now and then I think wistfully of what could have been.
Trying new food and drinks is one of my favorite parts of travel, and whenever I’m missing a particular place it helps to try and recreate something I had there. Doing this with food can get quite involved, but cocktails are an easy way to recapture a long lost evening on vacation. Cocktail ingredients are usually the same the world over, so with the purchase of a few bottles you can be transported back to whatever little bar captured your heart on your travels.
In the case of the Jerezana, the bar was Happiness Forgets, a candlelit basement in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London that I visited with my sister a couple of years ago. We both love sherry cocktails, so it was inevitable that one of us would order the Jerezana. This riff on the Bamboo is made with two types of sherry and two types of vermouth, as well as a hefty dose of orange bitters and a fragrant vanilla syrup. For sherry lover it is utter perfection, but I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t enjoy this low-ABV sipper.
History: The Jerezana was created at Happiness Forgets by Geoff Robinson in 2016.
Jerezana
1 oz. Amontillado sherry
1 oz. Fino sherry
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
2/5 oz. vanilla syrup*
6 dashes orange bitters
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with an orange twist.
*For vanilla syrup, the ideal thing would be to infuse simple syrup with a vanilla bean. But I am going to give you the lazy man’s version that I usually make since vanilla beans are expensive and I don’t exactly have a stash of them in my pantry. Combine equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and add a dash of vanilla extract. Easy peasy.