If you've flown all day — nearly missing your final connection — en route to your first work trip since 2019, and someone hands you a blessedly strong stirred cocktail, you accept it without question. Only after that first sip dispenses its customary balm, erasing the claustrophobic grime of economy travel, can you focus your attention on what's in the glass.
I was, technically, drinking a Boulevardier. A Negroni with bourbon standing in for the gin, the traditional version also contains Italian red bitter liqueur and Italian sweet vermouth. But wait. This one tasted woodsy and herbaceous; there was minerality and mintiness (and licorice, perhaps?) beneath the dry, smoky single-malt whiskey, whose ratio slightly overtook the other two components. This was the Ballervardier, a bold iteration from the whimsical minds behind 40-year-old craft distiller St. George Spirits, which I sipped on a mild September evening at the distillery's sprawling headquarters in an old airplane hangar in Alameda, Ca.
