Adonis Cocktail

I have another confession (it seems that all this drinking is making me confess an awful lot...). I know nothing (and I repeat, nothing) about wine. For all of my enjoyment of obscure and delicious liquors, nothing. My parents drink a lot of wine. They love it. I had a roommate in college who couldn't drink beer and very rarely went for the hard stuff, but he learned a lot about wine. Even my younger sister knows more about wine than I do. It just...isn't something I can get into.

So when I do drink wine, it's either something sweet and girly, or else it's vermouth, on the rocks with a twist. Because vermouth is delicious and will forever remind me of Italy. So when I saw that this cocktail calls for "dry sherry," I went to the liquor store and stared stupidly at the rows of racks of wine. I didn't know if it was white or red, or really anything about it other than that sometimes people cook with cooking sherry. So I asked the salesman for a "dry sherry", and he pointed me towards a really small rack with just a handful of bottles. I guess it's not something people drink all the time. And while I sought all of the wisdom that Wikipedia could tell, I just ended up picking a cheap bottle that's labeled "Dry Sherry", figuring I couldn't go too wrong. So while it may not be the best, it probably tastes like sherry. Hopefully. So here we go.

Adonis Cocktail:

• 1 1/2 oz. Dry Sherry
• 3/4 oz. Italian (sweet) vermouth
• 1 Dash orange bitters

Stir with cracked ice and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass.

This is actually really pleasant and refreshing for something that's all alcohol. Granted, I'm used to cocktails like this being a bit more potent (this is basically a Manhattan with sherry instead of Whiskey, and this wine is only 36 proof, as opposed to the 80 proof of almost any liquor), so there's a lot more room for the flavors to play. The orange bitters round things out nicely, giving it a fruity finish. Traditionally, this would be an aperitif, or something you serve pre-meal to get your gastric juices flowing, and I could see it working well there.

I grow suspicious of websites that rate things and always give everything high marks, but so far everything has been drinkable and interesting. B+.