Hailing from New Orleans, the Creole Cocktail can elicit strong and varying opinions when it comes to the drink's formula. At Cane & Table, Kirk Estopinal says the problem with most versions of the cocktail is that the combination of sweet vermouth and Bénédictine can come off as syrupy without a bittering agent to offset the sweetness, so he employs Amer Picon to fix the problem. "Picon works like the dry flavors in Coca-Cola. It has a similar tactile dryness that wipes away the lingering sugar but allows the drink to have a creamy texture. It’s kind of a holy grail in drinks," he says.