In early 2020, like a lot of people, we found ourselves suddenly and unexpectedly with nowhere to go. A small group of close friends — all with roots in Chicago, all now scattered across Southern California — formed a bubble. We showed up at each other's homes, cooked together, and tried to make something meaningful out of time that could have easily felt like it was just slipping away.
Cocktails became a shared project. Not just a drink before dinner, but something to research, debate, experiment with, and refine. We started keeping notes. We started having opinions. And slowly, through a lot of trial and more than a little error, we developed real preferences — about balance, about spirit character, about what makes a drink worth making again.
"We all fell in love with the Paper Plane. Not just the drink — the idea of it."
The Paper Plane found us through the rabbit hole that is cocktail research. Created by Sam Ross and Sasha Petraske in 2008 — specifically conceived for the opening of The Violet Hour in Chicago — it's an equal-parts cocktail: one ounce each of bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino, and fresh lemon juice. No ingredient dominates. Each one holds its own and lifts the others. It's the kind of drink that converts people who think they don't like bourbon, or Aperol, or amaro. We've seen it happen.
The Paper Plane was created specifically for The Violet Hour in Chicago — its birthplace and spiritual home, where it debuted on the opening menu and became a staple. Ross named it after the M.I.A. song "Paper Planes," which he had on repeat while developing the recipe. We'd all spent years in Chicago before landing in LA, and that thread — the song, the bar, the city — made the drink feel like it was already ours.
Once we understood the Paper Plane, we couldn't stop pulling it apart. What happens if you replace the bourbon with mezcal? What if the Aperol becomes Cynar? What if elderflower takes the place of Amaro Nonino? The 1:1:1:1 ratio turned out to be a remarkable framework — forgiving enough to survive substitution, precise enough that the wrong choice reveals itself immediately.
Ratio Cocktails is our attempt to document that ongoing experiment. The wins are here, with tasting notes and honest opinions. The failures will be here too — because understanding what doesn't work is at least as valuable as knowing what does. And the builder is here for anyone who wants to start pulling their own combinations apart.
We're still experimenting. We'll keep logging what we find.