Castle of Cordoba (Death & Co. Recipe)

 

It is beautiful. It is fortified. It is very classic. This cocktail is very much like as Spanish castle. The ingredients aren't especially Spanish, but that hardly matters. There's sherry, a lot of it, and that is good enough.

A couple of things needed to happen for me to knock out this recipe. I have only solera reserve sherry, which was much too dark to used in place of pale cream sherry in such a high dose. I cut it down by half with Manzanilla fino sherry so that it took on a pale color and remained sweet but a little lighter and mustier. I felt it was a great compromise. 

The fortifying ingredient, calvados, was also substituted for by Laird's Applejack 86. I feel that the juiciness of Laird's isn't exactly the flavor of French apple brandy, but the addition of cognac per the recipe adjusts for that anyway. And Martell's single distillery is especially dry and wild tasting--lots of terroir in it like a grappa because it isn't blended with other distilleries like most cognacs. 

This cocktail is decidedly rich, with lots of sweetness from the sherry, but complex. Apples are more than hinted at, and even my modification of Manzanilla sherry did a lot to suggest sour apple notes. This was a winner of a dessert drink.

• 3/4 oz. calvados (Laird's Applejack 86)
• 1/2 oz. cognac (Martell single distillery used)
• 2 oz. pale cream sherry (1 oz. Orleans Manzinilla Fina and 1 oz. Lustau East India Solera Reserve used)
• 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
• 1 apple slice garnish

Combine all liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the apple slice.