The LAST CALL 2024 New Year's Rockin' Eve Special
Brought to You by High Wire Distilling Co.
The LAST CALL 2024 New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Special is available to all readers thanks to the generous support of High Wire Distilling Company.
Charleston’s High Wire Distilling Company—founded by husband-and-wife team, Scott Blackwell and Ann Marshall—helped pioneer small-batch, craft spirits in South Carolina, focusing on a simple approach of using the finest ingredients available and developing recipes using a creative, culinary approach.
Launched in 2015, their High Wire Distilling Co. Southern Amaro remains a standout in the ever-growing category of American amari. Blackwell and Marshall looked to Italy’s rich tradition of amaro for inspiration, but crafted their own regionally inspired style using foraged and regionally grown Southern ingredients such as Charleston black tea from Wadmalaw Island, Yaupon holly, Dancy tangerine, and wild mint harvested on Johns Island.
With a dark cola color and coming in at 30-percent alcohol-by-volume, High Wire Distilling Co. Southern Amaro is an ideal medium-body, slightly bitter, gateway-style amaro with notes of licorice, mint, vanilla, and fresh citrus. Try it neat on its own, over ice with a splash of soda water and an orange peel, and in classic cocktails like the Black Manhattan and Boulevardier—or stir it up on our featured cocktail for New Year’s Eve, the Yesterday, Today, and Amaro.
New Year’s Eve Cocktail: Yesterday, Today, and Amaro
Brian Kane, Abe Fisher | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Yesterday, Today, and Amaro, one of the best-named cocktails from my book, Amaro, was created by bartender Brian Kane when he was working at Abe Fisher (now permanently closed) in Philadelphia. Kane told me the drink’s name was an homage to the history of passing down recipes for amaro production from one generation to the next.
Over the years making this bittersweet Manhattan variation on New Year’s Eve has become a personal tradition. It’s a terrific cocktail, but the name is just made for symbolically looking back at the year as it ticks down its final hours while embracing the company you’re with and a bit of hope for whatever the future may to hold.
Most bars will have all these ingredients on hand, so don’t be afraid to politely ask your bartender to make this for you. I tend to do that when I’m out and about between Christmas and New Year’s Eve and the bartender always gives a nod of approval when they give it a straw test, and in many cases other people at bar will see it and ask about the drink and soon order one for themselves.
Makes 1 Drink
2 ounces rye (preferably Wild Turkey 101)
1/2 ounce Cynar
1/4 ounce Averna or High Wire Distilling Co. Southern Amaro
1/4 ounce Bénédictine
Lemon zest
Combine all the ingredients except the lemon zest in a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until chilled and strain into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass. Express the lemon zest over the surface of the drink and discard.
Closing Out 2023: LAST CALL Fun Facts
Welcome to the second-annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Special!
The original mission statement for LAST CALL still holds true with a promise to feature regular dispatches on bars and bar culture, drinks and spirits, restaurants and regional foodways, popular culture, and sometimes cats.
In 2023, I wrote and shared just over 100 dispatches on LAST CALL with articles, personal essays, interviews, and recipes covering everything from vintage amaro, the 10th anniversary of Emmett’s Pizza, a breakout Brooklyn gelato maker, and the agony of being a lifelong Knicks fan, to a one-night-only Brooklyn pop-up of London’s St. John restaurant, the new generation of brewery and distillery cats, and my favorite childhood Central New York pizzeria. Plus there were on-the-ground field reports from my travels throughout Italy with Ed Anderson and my annual residency at LUCA in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. If I have the time and means I hope do travel more in 2024. I especially miss Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. And I think 2024 just might be the year I adopt a new cat (RIP Louis), though I still have to master that whole you have to love yourself before you can truly love someone else. That’s what resolutions are for, I guess.
This past year also featured the launch of two new paid subscriber exclusives: The Lowdown (an expanded edition of what I’ve been eating, drinking, writing, watching, and reading) and City Guides (a curated lineup of my personal picks for eating and drinking in New York City and beyond).
We also celebrated our 1-year anniversary, introduced underwriting and sponsorship partnerships with some like-minded businesses and brands, and continued to grow the total number of subscribers to LAST CALL (it took me 14 months to hit my personal 1-year subscriber milestone but that’s close enough for me) and hope to double that by this coming July.
Next year promises the continuation of these popular features along with even more original content, including essays, interviews, and collaborations. And this will be the first place to learn about any details of my next book, Drinking Italian, including publication date, pre-orders, cover reveal, early excerpts, and more.
While not a full-on Dick Clark-style countdown, coming up next are a host of fun facts from the first full calendar year of LAST CALL, which launched July 11, 2022, including the most popular dispatches, the top 10 Dive Bar Jukeboxes, and some of my favorite articles I’ve published this past year beyond LAST CALL. Plus, a host of boldfaced Friends of LAST CALL will be dropping by to share their own New Year’s Eve plans.
Scheduled to Appear: David Lebovitz, Elizabeth Minchilli, David Wondrich, Garrett Oliver, Christene Barberich, and more special guests!
Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2023
“The Art of Drinking Alone” (June 18, 2023)
This 2014 personal essay about my father is one of the best things I’ve ever written, and sharing it on Father’s Day proved to connect with so many readers.