[light piano music]
Welcome back, friends! It's Anders. Today we're making a Paper Plane.
This is a modern classic, and it is just delicious.
And really simple to make if you have the right ingredients. I do have a couple of bottles that are going to be new
the channel today, so that's exciting. And before we get to the recipe I do have a quick announcement.
A lot of you have reached out and said you can't get all of the bottles I use on this channel.
And I don't like that news. However, good thing! I just teamed up with
my friends over at Curiada, and we have created a collection of the bottles I use most in my videos.
To explain what Curiada is, it is a company that will ship booze to you directly.
The collection is at anders.curiada.com. Curiada is in most of the United States, so if you are in the U.S. check it out.
There's a good chance that they deliver to you.
And then you don't have to go bouncing around from liquor store to liquor store looking for one random bottle.
Moving forward, I will be leaving links in the description and pinned comments below, and my hope is that this helps you at home.
You!
Also, if you use my link it helps me a little bit, and it's very much appreciated.
So thank you to the wonderful people over at Curiada. I've just had a great time working with them.
I think this is an exciting thing. All of us rejoice.
Now, if you're new to the channel, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes.
And let's go make the Paper Plane.
To the bar.
[intro music]
2008 - That's the year the Paper Plane came into existence. It was created by Sam Ross who was a
bartender at Milk and Honey in New York. The same Sam Ross that created the Penicillin cocktail.
So this guy knows his stuff. Now it was not created for Milk and Honey in New York, but created for
a Chicago bar called The Violet Hour. This is interesting because that year, 2008, I remember
going to The Violet Hour because I was just getting into classic cocktails.
The only thin is, I don't remember having a Paper Plane. I had this thing called a Summer Old Fashioned, and it was a delight.
The story goes that The Violet Hour reached out to Sam Ross and said,
"Would you create a cocktail for our summer menu?"
So he created the Paper Plane, which was a riff on the Last Word.
It was an all equal parts cocktail. Instead of gin, it's bourbon. Instead of green chartreuse
and maraschino, he used Campari and Amaro Nonino. And then instead of lime juice, lemon juice.
Easy, breezy, beautiful. We're not sponsored by Covergirl.
And that was the original Paper Plane.
Which actually wasn't called the Paper Plane. I mean he called it the Paper Plane,
but on the menu they put Paper Airplane - it was a miscommunication. But he wanted to call
it the Paper Plane after the M.I.A song that was popular at the time - and it was popular at the time.
I remember that playing all the time. But Sam Ross decided he was not quite happy with this drink.
It was too bitter. So he took out the Campari and he put in Aperol - which sweetened it up a little bit.
And it works beautifully. So that recipe he took with him to Milk and Honey in New York,
put it on the menu as the Paper Plane, and it took off. And it's a great drink.
That's the drink we're going to be making today. That's my story. Glassware - served up, just like the Last Word.
Get your glassware chilled. I'm going to do it in a Nick and Nora because I love that glass.
All of my Last Word riffs are served in Nick and Noras - it's just awesome.
Alright [ahhhh] now the booze.
We are going to need bourbon, amaro, Aperol, and lemon Juice.
The bourbon I'm using is Old Grand-Dad Bonded, the amaro is Amaro Nonino,
and the Aperol is, well, Aperol.
For the bourbon, I'm using a slightly higher proof bourbon.
This is a hundred proof. I like this one for a couple of reasons. Number one: it has a nutty flavor, kind of peanutty, that I really like.
Number two: it's gonna give it a little heftiness. So it's gonna give some weight to an otherwise relatively light cocktail.
But you should use whatever bourbon you want.
For the amaro, the drink calls specifically for Amaro Nonino. It's a lighter style amaro, but you can use other light amari as well.
Montenegro is a common substitution for this one, but if you want to go with the true Paper Plane, Nonino.
Aperol - if you'd like, you could swap this out and put the Campari back in
if you want a bigger bold flavor - a little bit more bitterness.
But the sweetness of the Aperol works really well with the lemon juice. Lemon juice - freshly squeezed.
Let's build.
This is all equal parts, so how much exactly of each one is going to come down to the size of your glass.
In my case, I'm going to do three quarters of an ounce of all of these.
Three quarters of an ounce of bourbon, do three quarters of an ounce of Amaro Nonino,
Three quarters of an ounce of Aperol,
and three quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
If you have a bigger glass, then do all one ounce. If you have a giant bowl, do three ounces of each.
Now we can add ice and shake. The usual 10 seconds.
Grab your chilled glassware and double strain right into the cocktail glass.
The original garnish would be a small paper plane because that's what the drink's called.
I made one.
This is not like me, but I will do it out of respect for Sam Ross.
There it is, the Paper Plane.
Cheers!
That was a good paper plane.
This is the perfect arc of a cocktail as far as taste I think.
Take a sip and you get brightness from lemon, but you get this woody flavor from the bourbon that blends
right into the amaro, and then there's a slight fruitiness that blends right into
the Aperol, and it's brightened back up with the lemon. I feel like if it were an arc, it kind of goes like this -
which is really nice. That's what you want. It's round.
If it didn't have those deeper flavors, I feel like it would go like this.
A lot of times I do my take on classic or modern classic cocktails and tweak it, but this one, to me, doesn't need any of that.
Can I have a sip?
Ahhhh
Hmm
Yes!
Ooh
I hope that you all get these spirits and try this cocktail.
It's an easy recipe to remember. The hardest part is making a small paper plane.
Thank you for watching. Like, subscribe, share this with a friend.
The cocktail and the video. I'll see you next time.
Cheers!
Look at this little itty bitty one.
Yeah, I was pretty proud that my fat fingers could make such a small airplane,
but it was actually too small.
[music fades]