Paper Plane
It's National Paper Airplane Day, and admittedly I tend to be better at making drinks than making things fly, so in celebration I'm making a Paper Plane instead. Definitely a top 10, probably even top 5 cocktail in my book, and super easy to make.
Recipe: Paper Plane
Ingredients:
0.75 oz fresh lemon juice
0.75 oz Amaro Nonino
0.75 oz Aperol
0.75 oz Bourbon
Build:
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake to chill.
Double strain into a coupe, martini, or Nick and Nora glass.
Enjoy!
Story:
First appearing in Chicago in 2008, the Paper Plane, named after the M.I.A. hit of the same name, was created by legendary bartender Sam Ross at the request of Toby Maloney for the newly opened Violet Hour. Now considered a modern classic, Ross drew inspiration from the recently revived Prohibition-era equal parts cocktail, The Last Word, which also happens to be another household favorite.
According to Ross, around the time he was tasked with creating a signature drink for Violet Hour, a regular at his home bar, Milk & Honey, brought in a bottle of Amaro Nonino for him to try, and he immediately fell in love with it. So when asked to come up with the drink that ultimately became the Paper Plane, he knew two things: one, that it would be an equal-parts sour similar to the Last Word, and two, that it would contain Amaro Nonino as one of its parts.
From there, he tried a few different spirits before settling on Bourbon. He added lemon juice for the sour component and briefly experimented with using Campari as the final piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, he fairly quickly swapped the Campari out for Aperol, noting that the Campari was too astringent and made the drink slightly too bitter and out of balance, and the Paper Plane as we know it was born.
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