cocktail hour

My friend tigerflower invented a cocktail, to the following recipe:

2 parts bourbon
1 part maraschino liqueur
1 part simple syrup
1 part fresh lemon juice

Shake with ice until well mixed. You can drink this as is, or pour into a tall glass and fill the remainder of the glass with seltzer and ice. Garnish with a cherry or two, or a bit of lemon if you haven't got cherries.

I don't have a shaker, the liquor store didn't have maraschino (and you can't just use the liquid from the cherry jar, because there won't be enough unless you plan to, like, tile your floor with cocktail cherries), and I'm not so proud that I always squeeze fresh lemons; so mine is made with grenadine and ReaLemon, and it's on the rocks.

It is Quite Red, but pretty tasty. The lemon juice stops it being so sweet that I can't drink it. It is, in a lot of ways, a Very Red bourbon sour. I like it. (I agree that it would be better shaken in a shaker and served in a martini glass, where it would confuse the daylights out of anyone who sipped it expecting a Cosmopolitan.) I must confess I do intend to ( eat the garnish -- )

-- I bought snooty all-natural cherries for precisely that purpose. [eta: The snooty all-natural cherries are delicious. Where the regular jar of cherries contained cherries, HFC, some other stuff, and Red 40, the snooty jar contains cherries, sugar, and fruit- and vegetable-derived coloring. Even having sat in bourbon for a couple of hours they don't taste pickled in any way, you know how maraschino cherries usually have that slight chemical top note? Not these. Three times the cost of the day-glo ones, but worth it, and they won't turn the bees pink.]

It is called a Government Shutdown. I am adopting this drink liek whoa. Thanks, tigerflower!