Whenever I have a nightcap of Fernet, for instance, I’m reminded of other amari I’ve sipped — Montenegro, Nonino and Cynar — journaling in front of the Duomo in Crema, Italy. That image of past me stirs fond memories of the many ice-cold Cynar spritzes I’ve enjoyed with friends at Bar Pisellino in the summer. Those bubbles float into my Champagne years, when a colleague and I would go to the underground Flûte in Midtown for weekly Champagne Tuesdays. Another wine I love is sherry, which reminds me of a martini I had at Our/New York, a vodka bar and distillery that became my after-work watering hole for a couple of years (the martini was “dirty” from a splash of sherry). The bar manager at the time, Rustun Nichols, showed me that my go-to martini was actually a 50/50, an evolution from the Bond-inspired Vesper I thought I loved but found difficult to choke down in my early 20s. Now in my 30s, a 50/50 goes down easy.

Your own journey doesn’t have to start at a bar, but a bar — and the person behind it — is a great place to start. While at the Savoy in London, Hirsch told his bartender that he liked Old-Fashioneds and Manhattans served strong — that he liked to be “slapped around” by his cocktail a bit, but that he wanted something more interesting. “What would you suggest?” he asked.

It’s a good question. And it led to Hirsch finding his new go-to: the Vieux Carré, a heady mix of rye, Cognac, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine and Peychaud’s bitters.

Lamar Curtis, a bartender at On the Rocks, a cozy whiskey bar in Hell’s Kitchen, suggests starting simply: “If you know what base spirit you like, you can’t go wrong with the classics.”

On the Rocks is owned by Howard Ostrofsky, who, after retiring in 2008, wanted to establish a global destination for whiskey lovers, not just a local watering hole. A few years later, he opened the bar, where you can find him sitting in a corner a couple of times a week. And it was there, more than 10 years ago, that I started drinking Old-Fashioneds, learning what happens to good whiskeys when you add a little sugar and bitters. They round out at the edges. Then I moved onto Manhattans, a short but powerful phase that helped me pivot back to my original sin: double Scotch, single-malt.