Created in honor of the trainwreck that was the first episode of the Startups: Silicon Valley, and also to get me through Episode 2, the Sour Cherry Frisco is a non-ironic homage to stressed-out webmonkeys everywhere and also to the ingredients I had in my kitchen.

I am not a cutthroat startup, so I’ll credit the source of my good idea, namely this delicious-looking recipe for a dirty sour cherry manhattan.

As this is neither Manhattan nor Italy and I was lacking in fancy sour cherries, I substituted my non-fancy but delicious sour cherry syrup. And to add an extra note of bitterness, I added a lemon peel garnish. As we all know, changing the garnish changes the drink, so we can’t call it a Manhattan any more. The Silicon Valley is too long, and The Mountain View is too boring. Since the show is at least 80% in San Francisco, and is 100% the kind of people long-time residents love to hate, The Frisco just feels right.

Highly addictive, kind of bitter, and guaranteed to knock you on your ass… cheers to Startups: Silicon Valley!

Sour Cherry Frisco

2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz sweet red vermouth
1 tsp orange bitters
3 tsps sour cherry syrup
lemon peel garnish

Rub the lemon peel on the rim of the glass. Mix bourbon, vermouth, bitters, and cherry syrup over ice and strain into the glass. Garnish with the lemon peel and toast your worthless stock options.