The Bronchitini

When confronted with a nearly empty liquor cabinet and a yearning for a cocktail, One must innovate. After a recent bout with bronchitis, I found that I had a nice stock of cherry-flavored cough syrup. A new cocktail was born.

Ingredients:
2 ozs. gin
one-quarter tsp cough syrup

Start with a chilled martini glass. Swirl the quarter tsp of cough syrup in the glass to coat it. Shake 2 ozs of gin in a cocktail shaker with ice to cool it. Pour gin into the cough syrup-coated martini glass.

Notes: I've attempted this drink with a cough drop as a garnish, but it becomes sickly sweet. The beauty of the cough syrup is that it's sweet, but not too sweet. A tiny bit adds a bittersweet edge to the gin, and flavors it quite subtly. I used prescription cough syrup, but over-the-counter varieties would certainly work. I'd avoid children's cough syrup (too sweet). The amount of codeine in a quarter tsp of cough syrup will be negligible, so go ahead, make two.