Recently, I’ve been finding a lot of good cocktail recipes in Old Mr. Boston’s Bartenders Guide. I’m usually able to find simple recipes with pretty classic ingredients in it. By classic I’m really referring to the presence of bitters, which are an essential element of a home bar and one of the key components of a cocktail.

If you’ve picked up many cocktail books, I may have noticed what I have. There are two types: the classic cocktail books (even if they’ve been published recently) in which many recipes have bitters, or the more modern (for lack of a better word) books, like one from my collection: The Complete Bartender. There are zero recipes with bitters in that book – it’s lots of vodka-and-juice cocktails, aka 1990’s cocktails (which is not a good thing, believe me).

Back to Mr. Boston, though. I found a fun recipe with gin, Chartreuse and sweet vermouth that has a really great flavor profile and looks really cool if you perch the cherry garnish right on the edge like I did:

Jewel Cocktail

• in a mixing glass, combine:
• 3/4 oz green Chartreuse
• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 3/4 oz gin
• 1 dash of orange bitters
• stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass
• garnish with a cherry

We’ve made the Jewel on the Simple Cocktails Podcast, too. Listen here.