Tuxedo Affumicato
Stir ∙ 3 min ∙ 29.5% ABV ∙
The Tuxedo Affumicato rebuilds the Tuxedo on mezcal in place of gin, stirred with aromatized wine and maraschino liqueur. Smoky mezcal leads over a pale, floral wine backbone, with a faint cherry-almond sweetness and a bittered edge that dries into an herbal, anise-tinged finish from the Strega mist.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Stir all ingredients with ice: Mezcal 40 mlAromatized wine 20 mlMaraschino liqueur 10 mlCreole-style bitters 1 dash
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Garnish with an orange twist and a mist of liquore Strega
Tips
- Pre-chill the coupe well before straining — the drink is entirely up with no ice in the glass to keep it cold.
- Express the orange twist directly over the surface before dropping it in, so its oils sit on top where you smell them first.
- Keep the Strega mist light, one or two spritzes over the top, so the herbal note stays a top layer rather than mixing in.
History
Tuxedo Affumicato was created in 2016 by bartender Riccardo Aletta, known as "Ricky D Wing," at Holy Birds bar in London. The name, Italian for "smoked," refers to the finishing touch of a spray of Strega liqueur misted over the glass from an atomizer, a modern twist on the classic Tuxedo Cocktail that swaps the gin base for mezcal.
The Tuxedo Cocktail itself is generally traced to the Tuxedo Club, founded in Tuxedo Park, New York in 1886, though its documented origin is the 1900 Harry Johnson's Bartenders' Manual, and some historians instead point to the Waldorf-Astoria bar as its birthplace. Built as a stirred, gin-and-vermouth relative of the Martini sharpened with maraschino and absinthe, it became a base for many later riffs, of which Tuxedo Affumicato is one.
