Ever since I had a sip of my first Toronto cocktail, combining rye and fernet, I've been on a mission to create a cocktail of my own using the West Coast's favorite amaro. First the recipe itself, then I'll get into the backstory:

Tramontana

• 1oz Aquavit
• 1oz Fernet Branca
• 1oz Cointreau
• 2dash Angostura

Stir, serve up and garnish with a lemon twist.

As you can see, I'm pretty happy to have a cocktail that uses a whole ounce of Fernet. This is a spirit that normally takes over a cocktail, but the sweetness from the Cointreau and the acidity from the lemon help balance it incredibly well. As far as the aquavit goes, I prefer Krogstad, which has a touch of sweetness itself, but mostly it's to add even more spice and herbal notes like star anise and caraway to Fernet's saffron and mint. However, the drink works just fine with Aalborg aquavit. Finally, Angostura's ginger flavor rounds it all out.

I started with simply trying to come up with my own variation of the Toronto itself, first adding sweet vermouth (which makes it a Fernet manhattan) but everything about the drink was off: bitterness, sweetness, acidity, you name it. I think fundamentally I didn't have a good Toronto recipe to start with, after having been blown away by renditions of the drink from Evan Zimmerman and Murray Stenson. Okay, okay, those are two of the best in the west, but having their Toronto as my baseline made me irritated I couldn't make it at home.

I could have dialed down the Fernet quantity, but part of the fun was trying to concoct a drink that used it in such large amounts. I threw in a splash of aquavit to see if the added spice and touch of sweetness would help balance it out, and slowly I ended up phasing out the rye in favor of aquavit.

The Cointreau came about in search of a sweet component to the drink. First sweet vermouth was used, but it lacked citrus. Fresh orange juice, paradoxically, wasn't sweet enough. I probably could have eventually found a solution mixing juice with simply syrup, but in the end the Cointreau provided the texture, sweetness, and orange flavor that I was looking for to go with the aquavit and Fernet. It still lacked that finishing citrus note, and so the lemon twist was the final piece to the puzzle.

I used to call this drink the Oslo Cocktail, but the Drago Centro People's Cocktail contest gave me the perfect chance to rename it; tramontana is the Italian name for the north wind, which is appropriate given that aquavit is a nordic product and Fernet Branca comes from Northern Italy. Also, Fernet is enjoyed by Northern Californians as well as Pacific Northwesterners, making this a very northern drink.