Enjoyed: Thursday, June 22, 2023

Listed on the menu: Yes, as “Luxardo Old Fashioned”

Ingredients: Angel’s Envy Bourbon, luxardo cherries, bitters and orange

The occasion: For the final part of our tour of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, we stopped in Port Townsend. We began the afternoon with a soak in a private salt-water tub at a spa, then lingered on our motel balcony and watched the boats and ferries directly in front of us on the Port Townsend Bay. We walked to supper and admired the Victorian architecture of many of the buildings downtown.

My rating: *** out of 5. I was surprised by the cloudiness of my cocktail, given the “traditional” ingredients listed. Several cherries were muddled at the bottom, and so the cherry flavor dominated. Angel’s Envy, I later learned, is finished in port wine barrels, which likely further contributed to the fruity taste. The bartender made a mistake on Husband’s Manhattan, so I wonder if he was not very experienced, and perhaps was reading the menu for the recipe–could he have put orange juice in the cocktail, versus a slice of orange? That would explain the cloudiness.

Final thoughts: Dining at Alchemy was a unique experience. I was expecting a more “bougie” atmosphere, since the restaurant touted itself as a “bistro” with a renowned chef. The food was delicious and definitely Italian-influenced, but we felt like we stepped into a movie set for something like “Moonstruck”: rich red walls, gold lamé tablecloths, paper doilies, a long central serving table filled with many opened bottles of wine, waiters wearing too much aftershave, and so on. But we had fun! And left with happy bellies.