Cocktail Experiment: Little Italy Cocktail

This is a drink experiment that went extremely well. Ramazzotti is one of my favorite bottles to go to for a drink at my home bar, and it is not infrequent that a night at work ends with me pouring a ramazzotti neat upon getting home. It is a smooth bitter flavor, and has an alluring sweetness, almost like coca-cola. This drink is partially inspired by the Gunshop Fizz, a wonderful drink from the Rogue cocktail book. It also partially was because we had run out of limes and lemons at home, and I wanted to make a drink for my wife using some fresh ingredients, and strawberries were my best option. I am a big fan of equal parts drinks (Last Word and Negroni are two go-tos for inspiration), and also minimal ingredients.

Little Italy Cocktail:
1 oz. Rye Whiskey (I used Templeton, which is exceptionally good for this drink, Bulleit also works)
1 oz. Ramazzotti amaro (Have not experimented with others, but the Ramazzotti pairs perfectly with rye)
3 strawberries

Muddle 2 strawberries and shake with rye and Ramazzotti. Fine strain into a coupe, garnish with a strawberry.

Hardly a Rogue Cocktail, but refreshing nonetheless and a wonderful vehicle for the Ramazzotti to really take center stage.

100 Reasons Vodka Is Kind of Lame 100-90

100. It is boring
99. It tastes like nothing in most cases
98. While it is entirely untrue that if someone drinks vodka, they are an asshole; if someone is an asshole, they are 99% of the time drinking vodka.
97. It mixes poorly with almost all Italian vermouth and liqueur (maraschino, amaro, campari, good amaretto). While a skilled bartender CAN mix vodka with these things, gin, aquavit, whiskey or even tequila makes for a much better balanced drink when working with 
96. This:

95. Blue cheese stuffed olives are disgusting and have no business being anywhere near a drink. It's like putting wasabi in coffee.
94. The extra dry/extra cold vodka "martini" is a chilled double shot of vodka in an inverted cone glass and is dumb.
93. One time, when I was watching Real Housewives of New Jersey with my wife, the "Italian" guys who were some strange combination of boyfriends or husbands or in-laws, went to a vodka bar and talked about how much they loved vodka. Not sure this really counts as a reason why vodka is lame, but it at least counts as EVIDENCE that vodka is imbibed by idiots.
92. The only people that drank vodka before the 50s were Russians.
91. http://www.threeolives.com/flavor/smores
90. The lame joke that the extra dry vodka martini spawned where the bartender holds the bottle of vermouth over the shaker in lieu of putting any vermouth in the drink. Or worse, when they look at the vermouth when they pour the drink.