7) Aperol Martini

1.5 oz. Junípero Gin
.5 Aperol
3 dashes peach bitters

Sorry for running a litte late on getting this week's drink up. As a bonus we'll have another one for y'all later this week.

Place all three ingredients in a shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously till ice cold and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

This one came pretty easy, thanks to Ed. The first cocktail we tried was my idea - I had wanted to use Hendrick's gin and Pimm's in a sort of super abstract Pimm's Cup sort of thing. It looked fantastic, but somehow we stumbled upon some sort of unholy alchemical algorithm which created a drink that tasted almost exactly like water (I was convinced that if one were to drink the entire cocktail they would see visions of their own demise). We spent a fair bit of time saying things like "what the fuck happened?", and "shouldn't some sort of flavor be coming through?" before we decided to try a different angle.

Undaunted (and trying to shake me from the pondering of my own mortality) Ed decided to veer into the world of Aperol. Aperol is a new favorite of Ed's - It's an orange flavored Italian apéritif which is frequently compared to Campari, but is not quite as bitter. He chucked the bottle of Hendrick's noting that it is a wee bit on the light side to stand up to something like Aperol. To provide a sturdier base we chose Junípero Gin, a fantastic Gin made by Anchor Brewing here in San Francisco. We weren't sure about the peach bitters, but found that they added a very subtle note that didn't present itself much, but we felt would be noticed without it.

I've decided to try and open up comments to see what happens. I'll be moderating them before posting and I've got the verification deal running as well, so there are few minor hoops but hopefully not anything too daunting. If you hate all that crap and want to let us know, or tell us just how freaking awesome we are you can e-mail us at drinkaweek at gmail dot com.