Fallen Leaves 3/4 ounce calvados (apple brandy) 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth 1/4 ounce dry vermouth dash brandy squeeze lemon peel Stir with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass. Squeeze lemon twist into drink, and use as garnish. Created by: Charles Schumann (1982)

Fallen Leaves
DrinkBoy Says: Be sure to include a heavy twist of the lemon peel over the drink right before you serve it.

This is a cocktail that one of my local bartenders brought to my attention recently. It is a fairly new cocktail, invented in 1982 by "Charles Schumann", and published for apparently the first time in his book "American Bar".

Calvados, which is an Apple Brandy, provides a very distinctive taste to this wonderful little cocktail. The use of both sweet and dry vermouth, provides an excellent rounding out of the flavors that appear to further enhance its "Fall" like flavor. You can almost picture the leaves gently falling about you as you casually sip this cocktail.

I've made it a point to get some of my other regular bartenders to mix this drink up, and they all have been suitably impressed by its clean and crisp flavor.