Low Ember
A whiskey sour built under a smoking cloche — the glass fills with cedar smoke before the first sip ever reaches it.
We smoke the glass itself, not the whiskey — a cedar plank set alight under a cloche, lifted at the table so the smoke rolls out over the drink rather than through it. Underneath, a straightforward whiskey sour, built firm: rye, lemon, a barspoon of demerara syrup, egg white for the collar.
The smoke is theatre, but it is also flavour — it clings to the foam and rides every sip for the first few minutes, then fades, and what is left is a very good, very simple sour. Most of what makes this one work is restraint: one plank, one cube, nothing else fighting for attention.