Pepper Plane Recipe

1. Prepare glass

If desired, lightly rim the serving glass with a tiny bit of lemon juice and dip the edge into a shallow plate with cracked black pepper to apply a thin pepper rim. Alternatively, reserve the pepper for a final sprinkle on the finished cocktail.

2. Add Aperol (1.5 oz), Ancho Reyes (0.5 oz), Licor 43 (0.5 oz), fresh lemon juice (0.75 oz) and simple syrup (0.25 oz, optional) into a cocktail shaker.

3. Fill the shaker with ice (about 1 cup or enough to nearly fill).

4. Shake vigorously for 12–15 seconds until the shaker is well chilled and slightly frosted. This chills and dilutes the drink to balance the chile heat and citrus.

5. Double-strain the cocktail into a chilled coupe or rocks glass (if using a pepper rim, be careful to avoid disturbing it). Use a fine mesh strainer in addition to the shaker strainer to remove small ice shards.

6. Express the oils of the orange peel over the surface by holding the peel skin-side down above the drink and giving it a firm squeeze so the citrus oils spray onto the cocktail.

7. Run the expressed peel around the rim of the glass and drop it into the drink as garnish.

8. If you did not rim the glass, lightly sprinkle a small pinch (about 1/8–1/4 tsp) of freshly cracked black pepper over the top to give an aromatic pepper note. Adjust to taste.