Mixology Monday- The Stone Fence circa 1806

This round of MixMo is hosted by the fine people (who I very briefly met at the TearDrop Lounge here in Portland) over at Bibulo.us. Why I don't have them linked on here is probably more of a reflection of my general laziness and fear of screwing up my blog settings than anything else, but I digress. The theme this time is 19th Century Cocktails, definitely a subject I approve of.

I actually make Stone Fence's, in fact, in my recent consultation for Belly Timber, a local restaurant in Portland, I put the 1852 Stone Fence ( Buffalo Trace bourbon , nonalcoholic apple cider, bitters) on their cocktail menu with great success. However, with this post, I'd like to explore an earlier version of the Stone Fence, one that is less commercially viable today, but interesting nonetheless. I'm calling this the 1806 version, because earlier incarnations of the Stone Fence used hard cider, and because on May 30, 1806 Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel because the man had accused his wife of bigamy. That seems as good a reason as any to challenge a man to a duel, and it seems to me that heavy consumption of Stone Fence's could make it much easier to challenge another person to a duel, so lets limit these to 3 or 4 on a Friday night ok kids? Unless, of course, you'd like to be facing your next door neighbor with .22s at 20 paces. Don't believe me? Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys were toasted on Stone Fence's before they found the bravery to take over Fort Ticonderoga. This is a cocktail to treat with respect.

Anyway, lets get back on track shall we? The earliest versions of the Stone Fence were whatever hard brown liquor Colonial settlers had on hand (usually rum) simply cut with hard cider. Lacking any really nasty New England rum, I decided to use a 3 year old rum from the oldest continually operating rum distillery in the United States. Old New Orleans Amber is a tasty tasty rum, well made and well suited for this cocktail. Next, and inauthentically, I added two dashes of Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel bitters for some complexity, a few rocks, and topped it off with some Hornsby's hard cider. While admittedly not as complex or compelling as later versions of the Stone Fence, at least to my 21st century palate, its still a potent and refreshing cocktail. I'm halfway into this one, and already craving another.