Rye first
A cocktail at a jazz club has one job: to still be good at the end of the second set.
That rules a lot out. Nothing too cold to sip slowly, nothing so delicate it falls apart while you are listening. We build around rye because it holds its shape as the ice gives — spice and backbone that a set's worth of melting only softens, never erases.
The house pour is stirred, not shaken, and served over one large piece of ice. Less dilution, a longer life, a drink that is still itself forty minutes in.
Smoke, used sparingly
A little smoke belongs in a room lit by a hearth. We get it from the drink's own bitters and a single pass of the glass through oak smoke — enough to echo the kitchen, not to drown the whiskey.
The temptation is to overdo it. Smoke is a seasoning, not a flavour of its own, so we treat it like salt: you should sense it and never quite be able to name how much is there.