The National - ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ + The Newark
**Guest Pairing from Joe Day**
Ingredients: 2 ounces Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy, 1 ounce Vya sweet vermouth, 1/4 ounce Fernet Branca, 1/4 ounce maraschino liqueur.
Mixing Instructions: Combine ingredients and stir in mixing glass with ice. Strain into chilled coupe glass.
Notes: There’s so much to love about The National’s new album Trouble Will Find Me. Matt Berninger & co. are picking up where they left off after High Violet, which may go down as one of the best records of the post-indie era. The brooding melodies, the persistent sadness, the fatalistic inevitability, the distant ship’s smoke on the horizon type sonic portraits are all there, as are guest appearances by St. Vincent, Sharon Van Etten and Sufjan among other indie luminaries. Such beautifully crafted sound requires an equally complex and challenging sip.
The Newark. It’s PDT’s tweak of the Brooklyn. Author Jim Meehan tells me “By the time John and I came up with this Brooklyn variation, there were so many cocktails named after neighborhoods in Brooklyn, we claimed Newark, New Jersey.”
New Jersey. Between Ohio and NYC. The National.