It’s a known fact that no one, not even famously energetic early-riser Ben Franklin or history’s most prolific artist/scientist/bearded-robe-wearer Leonardo da Vinci bounds excitedly from bed every single morning. Some days, the optics can’t completely focus no matter how much rubbing or how many carrots. Some days, it’s almost too hard to even see the end of the bed, much less provide the motor to drive out of it. Especially those days when the day before lasted way, way into the night (or the next AM). On these lurching days, I propose ordering out for an Eye-Opener. I’m not guaranteeing you’ll leap up and invent a flying car, or even guaranteeing leaving the bed, no matter if you’re in the most entertaining city in the world. But you’ll go back to sleep happy.

 

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounce dark rum

1/2 ounce Pernod

1/2 ounce crème de noyaux

1/2 ounce orange curaçao

1 egg yolk, preferably

 

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add

the rum, Pernod, crème de noyaux, orange curaçao, and egg yolk. Shake well (even if eyes are closed), until the shaker gets icy.

 

2. Strain the mix into a cocktail glass or coffee mug.

 

A Note: If you like breakfasts sweet, add 1/2-ounce simple syrup, and don’t let anyone give grief.

 

A Note: Crème de noyaux is a pink-tinged, sweet, almond-tasting liqueur made from French fruit pits (“noyaux” being French for “fruit pits.” It tastes better than it sounds.)

 

Note: As this recipe uses a raw egg, please do not serve it to the elderly or anyone with a compromised immune system.

 

—A.J. Rathbun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A.J. Rathbun is the author of Good Spirits: Recipes, Revelations, Refreshments, and Romance, Shaken and Served with a Twist (Harvard Common Press, 2007) and other books. The above recipe is excerpted from Good Spirits.