The guys discuss the seminal Aviation cocktail, made with London dry gin, fresh lemon juice, Luxardo maraschino liqueur, creme de violet (possibly), a cherry to garnish. Your tools will include a shaker, a Hawthorne strainer, a fine strainer if you like, and all of this goes in a beautiful classic cocktail coupe. Ben talks about the fun process of making a new cocktail menu. Kim discusses the upcoming whiskey dinner at Providence Restaurant with the renown Michter’s whiskey, featuring Michter’s 20 year bourbon. And . . .  the guys got engaged. Not to each other, but to their longtime girlfriends, wonderful gals. Lucky guys, lucky girls, things are happening, we are flying. Which brings us back to the Aviation! Often a gateway cocktail into craft cocktail making, a touchstone of sorts, because it’s well branded, it has a great name, it is timeless. Goes beyond the fundamentals of classic sour cocktails, this is essentially a gin sour with the funky Marascino liqueur that makes the Aviation so unique. Created by Hugo Enslin, head bartender at the Hotel Wallach in New York City, in the early twentieth century, first published in Enslin’s “Recipes for Mixed Drinks.” The recipe consisted of 1.5 ounces of gin, 3 quarters ounce of lemon juice, two dashes of maraschino liqueur and two dashes of creme de violet, giving it a pale, purple color. Harry Craddock, writer of the influential Savoy cocktail book, but omitting the creme violet. Meehan’s, Death & Co., suggest using almost no creme de violet, because it can have a soapy quality. Both the guys use the creme de violet ands that the name of the cocktail, the Aviation, is in reference to the color resembling the sky. Enjoy your own as the guys discuss the differences between their personal recipes and the Aviation has impacted their careers in the spirits industry. All that and more on Equal Parts: A Bartending Podcast about Cocktails.