Perhaps you’ve tuned into Sam Eilertsen’s Cocktail History podcast on iTunes, a show tracing the history of cocktails and their ingredients through storytelling and interviews with great cocktail historians like David Wondrich and New England historian Herb Andrews of History Channel fame. You can often find Sam hanging out at Fortnight Wine Bar in Providence, where he consults on their cocktail menu and occasionally tends bar.

Sam enlightens us with his favorite fall recipe, the Fortnight Fizz, featuring the golden triumvirate of apples—fresh Fuji apples, Calvados (apple brandy from the Normandy region of France) and Downeast Cider (an unfiltered and freshly pressed hard cider from Boston). Sam muddles the Fuji apple with lemon juice for tang and a touch of sugar to make a sweet-sour mash that’s enhanced by Angostura bitters, a warming whiff of spice.

The Calvados strikes a harmonious chord playing off the fresh green apple notes and is perked up with the playful sweet bubbles of hard cider. The whole thing is capped off with a dusting of fresh grated nutmeg—a spice, according to Sam, that was once worth its weight in gold. “It’s true, nutmeg was one of the most common garnishes in the drinks through the 19th century, but back in the Middle Ages nutmeg was thought to be the cure of the plague and other ‘incurable diseases,’ a valuable substance indeed!”

Sam muses that Columbus and Vasco da Gama sailed the New World in search of nutmeg. Irregardless, I can attest that the rousing addition of nutmeg to the Fortnight Fizz brings just enough spice to reel me in and keep me sipping.