Cocktail Recipe Cards

Classic · whiskey

Paper Plane

Equal parts bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino, and lemon, shaken. The modern classic that proves a four-ingredient drink can be memorised in one go.

Paper Plane

Shaken
  • ¾ oz 22.5 ml Bourbon
  • ¾ oz 22.5 ml Aperol
  • ¾ oz 22.5 ml Amaro Nonino
  • ¾ oz 22.5 ml Lemon juice · fresh
Method Shake hard with ice for 10–12 seconds. Double-strain into a chilled coupe. No garnish.
Glass Coupe
Garnish None
2008 · Sam Ross, New York Cocktail Recipe Cards
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Card updated September 7, 2026. Measures use 30 ml per ounce, the spec-sheet convention.

The spec

Three-quarters of an ounce each of bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino, and fresh lemon. Shaken, fine strained, up, no garnish. It was created by Sam Ross in 2008 and it’s on this site because it’s the best example of the equal-parts format working with four ingredients instead of three.

Amaro Nonino is the ingredient. It’s a grappa-based amaro with orange and a bit of caramel, and there isn’t a perfect substitute. Montenegro or Meletti get you a drink that’s fine and clearly not a Paper Plane. If you make it with a substitute, write which one on the card, because you’ll want to know which version you had when you finally buy the Nonino.

Bourbon, not rye. The original is bourbon; rye makes it sharper and slightly thinner, which some people prefer. Note it if you try it.

No garnish, on purpose. The drink is already balanced between bitter, sweet, and sour. A twist adds oils it doesn’t need.

Where people disagree

  • Ratio. Equal parts is canon and it works. Some people drop the lemon to ½ oz for a rounder drink. It’s a reasonable tweak and a different card.
  • The Aperol. It’s doing sweetness and a little bitterness. Campari in its place is a different, louder drink (sometimes called a Paper Plane with the wrong bitter, and sometimes just a mistake).

Make it yours

The equal-parts sour format is one of the most productive templates in modern bartending. The Paper Plane’s older sibling is the Last Word (gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino, lime), and the Naked and Famous (mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol, lime) is a cousin. Once you have the Paper Plane card, those two are one-line changes each.

This is also the drink that shows why notes belong on a card. “Made with Montenegro, a bit sweet, buy Nonino” is a sentence that saves you re-running the experiment six months from now.

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