At the end of a great meal, I invariably face a dilemma: dessert or digestif?
I don’t often crave sweets, but I’m always primed for a dense chocolate torte or a tangy lemon meringue pie. Or Basque flan, of course, if it’s the real deal and not that French fraud, crème caramel. And Chef Sin makes some incredible desserts, including a double-chocolate oatmeal cookie that’s as close as I get to a religion.
But if I’m going to indulge, often I’ll forgo dessert altogether and opt to break the calorie bank with another drink. Sometimes it’s just one more glass of wine; occasionally I’ll opt for Irish Coffee, which, if done right, nicely straddles the sugar-caffeine-booze divide.
As does this week’s Sunday Special, a bitter-sweet concoction with a confounding name: Mr. Dawson’s One Eye Open.
I learned this one from my bartending sensei, Pat Carden, who invented the only cocktail that I imbibe on a weekly basis, his award-winning Ten-Minute Martini™. Chef Sin and I were privileged to take a martini class from Pat in 2006, when he was working at the legendary Milky Way restaurant in Boise before moving on to a long-running gig at Chandlers Steaks & Seafood. He taught us the finer points of constructing the Ten-Minute Martini and the One Eye Open (as well as a third cocktail certain to be featured later in the Sunday Specials series, so stay tuned).
The One Eye Open takes a bit of work to prepare, but the result is a perfect nightcap as well as a visual stunner: contrasting layers of liqueur topped with a cocoa-sugar halo, like a more refined version of a Mudslide. Pat’s original recipe called for Starbucks brand coffee and creme liqueurs, but the latter seems to have been discontinued. No worries: Liqueurs based on coffee and on cream are plentiful, and you probably have Kahlúa and Baileys in your booze cabinet already, so feel free to improvise.
Serve the One Eye Open at the end of a dinner party, and your guests will try to invite themselves back the very next night.
Pat Carden retired from bartending in 2018, and though his Ten-Minute Martini lives on as the signature cocktail at Chandlers, this is the first time, as far as I’ve been able to determine, that the formula for the One Eye Open has been published apart from the one-page photocopied recipe Pat distributed to the class back in 2006.
And who was Mr. Dawson? I don’t remember asking at the time, and I haven’t been able to reach Pat to find out.
I’ll keep one eye open for him.
Mr. Dawson’s One Eye Open
Courtesy of Pat Carden
1/2 ounce coffee liqueur (pre-chilled)
1 1/2 ounces cream liqueur (pre-chilled)
1 ounce Jim Beam Black bourbon
Sugar and cocoa powder
Mix 1/2 teaspoon of cocoa powder with 3 teaspoons of sugar. Pour a few teaspoons of bourbon into a saucer and invert a cocktail glass into the bourbon to moisten the rim, then dip the rim into a second saucer with the cocoa-sugar mixture to create a chocolate crust.
Shake the cream liqueur and bourbon with ice until well chilled. Pour the coffee liqueur into the cocktail glass, then slowly strain the chilled cream liqueur-bourbon mixture down the inside of the glass, being careful not to disturb the chocolate rim or the coffee liqueur. Do not stir. Enjoy slowly, sipping the cream liqueur and bourbon until you reach the coffee liqueur layer at the bottom of the glass.