Amaretto Stone Sour

Orange juice. Add it to any standard sour and bartenders will call the result a stone sour, whiskey included. It fills the gap between the base and the lemon, which is why the drink tastes rounder and less pointed than a straight sour does.

Only the orange juice. Leave it out and you have a plain Amaretto Sour. Jeffrey Morgenthaler's much-copied version goes further still, adding cask-strength bourbon and egg white to give the liqueur some backbone. What you have here stays fruitier, softer and considerably easier to pour.

Forty-five milliliters against 45 of amaretto is the line. Push the juice to 90 and you have a long soft drink with almond in it, and 22 ml of lemon can no longer reach across that much sugar. If you want it longer, lengthen it with soda rather than more juice.

You're probably serving it over the ice you shook with, which is already half melted and full of cracks. Strain onto fresh cubes, or one large one. A little dilution helps a drink this sweet, but spent shaker ice hands you all of it at once.

A classic Amaretto Stone Sour calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Amaretto, 45 ml (1.5 oz) Orange juice, 22 ml (0.75 oz) Fresh lemon juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Amaretto Stone Sour is roughly 10% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it a relatively light, sessionable drink — similar in strength to a beer.

An Amaretto Stone Sour is shaken — the rule of thumb is to shake anything with citrus juice. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.