The apples at the market this week were the small hard ones. No good raw. Put them near heat and they turn into something else.

Apple brandy is that same idea, held in a bottle.

National Liqueur Day is on October 16, and this week we're pouring two bottles most people walk right past on the shelf. Yellow Chartreuse and Benedictine, both built on monastery recipes, both older than the drink they go into. That drink is the Widow's Kiss, written down in 1895.

Apple brandy, two liqueurs, two dashes of bitters. No citrus anywhere in it.

In this week's newsletter:

A. 13
B. 40
C. 130
D. 400

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter

The Widow's Kiss

Apple brandy with two monastery liqueurs stirred into it. Herbal, honeyed, and warmer than its size suggests.

Ingredients

Directions

Why It Works
George Kappeler printed this one in Modern American Drinks in 1895, while he was behind the bar at the Holland House in New York. His version called for two dashes of Angostura, half a pony each of yellow Chartreuse and Benedictine, and a pony of apple brandy, shaken rather than stirred (his original wording is here). Most bars now pour a little more apple brandy than he did and stir it instead.

Four ingredients and no citrus means the bitters and the stirring do all the balancing. Apple brandy carries the fruit. Yellow Chartreuse brings the herbs at 43 percent, which is gentler than the green bottle at 55. Benedictine brings honey and baking spice. Stir rather than shake, because there's no juice or egg in the glass and shaking would only cloud it and water it down. Buy real apple brandy, Calvados from Normandy or an American bottle, and skip anything labeled apple flavored whiskey. That stuff is pre-sweetened and this drink already has all the sugar it needs.

A liqueur is a spirit with sugar and flavor added. That's the whole definition. It also means every liqueur you pour is doing two jobs at once, sweetening the drink and flavoring it, which is why a recipe with Chartreuse or Benedictine in it usually has no simple syrup anywhere on the list.

Both bottles in this week's drink trace back to monasteries, and only one of them is still made by monks.

Chartreuse is made by Carthusian monks and has tons of herbs, plants and flowers. The paper trail starts with a manuscript handed to the order in 1605, and the monks worked it into the liqueur we drink by 1764. Green is 55 percent. Yellow, which is what the Widow's Kiss wants, is 43 percent and sweeter (the history is here).

Benedictine is younger than its name suggests. A wine merchant named Alexandre Le Grand worked out the recipe in 1863 from old monastic ones, 27 botanicals in all, and the D.O.M. on the label stands for Deo Optimo Maximo, meaning to God, most good, most great (the record is here).

How to buy your first one:

The template underneath:

Spirit, liqueur, bitters, stirred. That's the Widow's Kiss, and it's also an Old Fashioned with the sugar cube traded for something more interesting. Two ounces of a base spirit, half an ounce or so of liqueur, a couple of dashes of bitters, stirred cold and strained. Bourbon with allspice dram. Rye with Benedictine. Tequila with yellow Chartreuse. Same shape, different bottles.

One habit fixes most of these. Stir them, don't shake them. Nothing in the glass needs air.

Two more this week, both built around a liqueur. One of them has no base spirit at all.

Dry vermouth and Benedictine with a little absinthe. Low proof, floral, and odd in a way that grows on you.

Ingredients

Directions

Add everything to a mixing glass with ice. Stir for about 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Twist an orange peel over the surface and drop it in.

Why it works
The earliest printed recipe is in Hugo Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks from 1916, and Harry Craddock's version in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book is the one most bars pour, with twice as much vermouth as Benedictine so the honey doesn't take the whole glass over (the record is here). There's no gin or whiskey in it, and that's the point. Dry vermouth is wine, so this is a drink you can have before dinner without losing the evening. Use a bottle of vermouth you opened in the last few weeks and kept in the fridge, because tired vermouth tastes flat and this drink has nowhere to hide it. Three dashes of absinthe is a limit, not a suggestion.

Bourbon, allspice liqueur, and lime. Autumn spice with something sharp underneath it.

Ingredients

Directions

Add everything to a shaker with ice. Shake hard for about 12 seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe. No garnish needed.

Why it works
It first turns up in the 1937 Cafe Royal Cocktail Book out of London, and nobody knows who made it. The name comes from twisting the lion's tail, an old expression for provoking the British, which points at an American bartender working abroad during Prohibition. Allspice dram all but disappeared from American shelves for decades and came back around 2008, and that's when bartenders started pouring this again (the story is here). Allspice dram is loud, so half an ounce is plenty. Fresh lime, because the spice needs something tart to push against. This one gets shaken rather than stirred, since there's citrus in the glass and shaking is what knits juice and spirit together.

Want to make your own Allspice dram? Here’s the DIY version.

Cider for the apple, chamomile for the herbs, honey for the Benedictine. Same shape, nothing in it.

Ingredients

Directions

Add the cider, the tea, the honey syrup, the bitters, and the salt to a mixing glass with ice. Stir for about 20 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Lay the apple slice on top.

The two liqueurs in the real version are doing two things, sweetening and bringing herbs. Honey syrup covers the first. Chamomile covers the second, and brewed double strength it carries a faint bitterness close to what the Chartreuse gives you. Let the tea cool all the way before it goes anywhere near the glass, because warm tea melts your ice and thins the drink out. The pinch of salt is the part people skip, and it's what keeps the cider from tasting like juice.