When people ask me what my favorite drink is from my book Amaro, it is impossible to narrow it down to just one. But there is one drink that has been on my mind lately. It wasn’t until six years after the book’s publication that I looked back and reconsidered this particular drink—one that had haunted me—in a whole new light. Like awkwardly running into an ex at a bar, I wondered, what went wrong between us?

Partly, it was the drink’s name. When it comes to naming cocktails I tend to roll my eyes at those built on puns. But when Philadelphia bartender Brian Kane contributed his amaro-kissed Manhattan riff, I pardoned the drink’s admittedly catchy name—Yesterday, Today and Amaro—primarily because the spirit-forward cocktail—made with rye, Cynar, Averna and Bénédictine—was so damn good. (It may have inspired my own slide into Pun Land when I christened my cross-country book tour the “Amaro Never Knows” tour.)

Just like that run-in with an ex, it turns out that while I had been neglecting the drink, Yesterday, Today and Amaro was doing just fine out there on its own: It was chronicled on Difford’s Guide and shared on a number of cocktail blogs, Instagram, YouTube and Reddit (“I’m a weird amari nerd, and I approve this cocktail,” wrote one commenter). 

Kane created the drink in the late spring of 2015 when he was working at the now-shuttered Philadelphia restaurant Abe Fisher. There, a standout dish was the large-format, Montreal-style smoked short-rib platter, the kind of hearty fare built for the colder months and which warrants building out a deep amari list with cocktails to match. Enter the YT&A, which Kane hoped would “introduce the exotic by showcasing it in a familiar setting” and whose name was intended to pay homage to amaro producers passing down recipes from one generation to the next.

Kane’s signature cocktail came back into my life on a particularly depressing New Year’s Eve a few years ago when I stirred one up for the first time since the book came out. (While I enjoy the holiday season, this time of year I’m more aligned with the melancholy mood of A Charlie Brown Christmas than the hyperseasonal manic energy of Elf.) When you’re alone on New Year’s Eve, the drink’s name is particularly apt, and ever since then I’ve shared the recipe and its backstory on New Year’s Eve in my LAST CALL newsletter as a way to let people know they’re not alone.

It’s a bold and spirit-forward drink built for contemplation, perfect for thinking back on the past year as it ticks down its final hours, appreciating where you are at that very moment, and expressing a bit of hope for whatever the future may hold while bracing for the year ahead. 

Around this time of year, when my local bars are at their holiday best, and the bartender isn’t too in the weeds, I’ll share the recipe and ask them if they wouldn’t mind making me one. Each time, it’s received an approving nod after a straw test and soon the strangers next to me at the bar are asking the bartender for one of their own. 

I recently checked in with Kane, who is now the general manager at Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen in Old City, Philadelphia, to ask him about the legacy of his creation. “The drink is intentionally timeless and is certainly one of my best contributions, in hindsight,” he says. “Memories are ever-changing, as they say, but as we all get older while navigating this shift called life it’s important to reflect on the past, present and future.”