3:10 to Yuma
Tequila and rye form a tribute to the 1957 Western film
3:10 to Yuma is a film about perseverance in the face of persistent temptations to take the easy way out. Arizona rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin) has multiple chances to walk away from a bad situation, but instead chooses to doggedly pursue justice — namely, getting outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) on a train to jail in Yuma.
As a result, 3:10 to Yuma is also a film about hanging out in an Arizona town for a few hours while waiting for the train, which I think is mainly why I enjoyed it so much. It takes its time, really making you feel like you’re there for every minute of that wait. I thought it was a good pairing for a slow-sipping, spirit-forward cocktail combining spirits from the Old West and México.
I originally created a cocktail with 1½ oz tequila añejo, 1 oz rye whiskey, ½ oz lime juice, bitters, and simple syrup strained over cubed ice and dusted with TajÃn. While all these ingredients seem like they could work together, the original formulation wasn’t stellar. At 1½ and 1 oz respectively, the tequila and rye were competing to be the base spirit. The tequila añejo was clashing with the rye. The lime juice just wasn’t working. And the fast-melting cubed ice quickly turned the drink into a diluted mess.
Over the course of a few revisions (seen above), I shifted the recipe to be closer to a Oaxaca Old Fashioned, but with rye instead of mezcal. That meant dialing down the rye to ½ oz, removing the lime juice entirely, and moving to a single large ice cube with an orange twist. I also decided to swap the añejo tequila for blanco so it wouldn’t clash as much with the rye.
And with that, we have…
3:10 to Yuma
1½ oz tequila blanco
½ oz rye whiskey
¼ oz rich simple syrup (2:1)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Combine in a rocks glass. Add one large ice cube and stir. Garnish with TajÃn powder and an orange twist.
☞ Alan Joyce / The Sunken Galley
Original recipe was better