Mercy Missiles Cocktail Hour

Readers, as you may have suspected, it has taken us a good solid week (and a half) to get over the bitter taste of defeat in the wake of the Phillies' commanding sweep of our beloved Cincinnati Reds in the NL pennant race. R.I.P., 2010 season: you were as surprising as you were exciting. Se la vie.

It's fitting, then, that I now bring you the next installment in our ongoing series of thematic cocktail recipe fun. This offering was served up last night for our viewing of the season 4 finale of Mad Men, a show which has given us a consistently good excuse to mix up some exotic drinks. Upon review of our liquor cabinet, I decided we should delve back into the instincts-defying world of scotch-inspired cocktails--both because of our recent success with the surprisingly good Blood and Sand we mixed up last week, and because we still had more than half a bottle of scotch laying around.

A little research brought an excitingly-named candidate to the top of our list: the Piper at the Gates of Dawn(!). Like the Blood and Sand, the first sip is kind of strange--but the Kahlua takes hold pretty quickly and the cream smooths everyone's rough edges while the maraschino liqueur--which, oddly enough, I had on hand--lends a warm, syrupy dimension to the back end. It's pretty nice, if a little heavy. You wouldn't really want more than one or two--definitely a cold weather drink. Here's the details:

Piper at the Gates of Dawn

• 1&1/2 oz scotch
• 1 oz Kahlua
• 1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 oz cream

Add all ingredients except the cream to a shaker filled with ice, shake until cold, then strain into an old fashioned glass over ice. Slowly pour the cream into the drink over the back of a spoon, so it floats on top.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released in 1967, so we can make this drink thematic by imagining the events in this season of Mad Men (along with the great clothes and swingin' mod-ness of the glass-and-art deco SCDP offices)--all of which takes place in 1965--as leading up to the sound and insanity of the Floyd album. This year we see the series kicking into the 60's ideal, & as one of my favorite tv blogs points out: what we generally think of as the American 1960's didn't really come about until there was a Kennedy in the ground and Beatles on the tarmac. So, you know, if you really need your cocktail to speak to you about your favorite tv show and its corresponding cultural environment via its own (probably arbitrary) moniker, then I guess you can think about it that way. Me? Yeah, I like things to be appropriately related to my beverages in that way, and this little recipe is pretty tasty to boot.

The Kahlua surrounds the icy scotch underground.