fiji mermaid

1 oz Four Roses Bourbon
1 oz Barbancourt 8 Year Rhum
1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
1/2 oz Grenadine
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters
10 drop St. George Absinthe

Shake with ice, strain into a double old fashioned glass, and fill with crushed ice. Garnish with a lemon peel mermaid's tail and freshly grated nutmeg, and add straws.
For a drink of the day at Loyal Nine two Thursdays ago, I decided to mashup two Tiki classics: the Bourbon-based Port Light with some aspects of the rum-based Test Pilot. Originally, my tinkering began with the passion fruit-Averna pairing, but that ended up too dark here, and I switched to the more traditional passion fruit-grenadine as seen in the Pahoehoe and other drinks. For a name, I decided upon the Fiji Mermaid which was a staple of sideshows with the head and torso of a monkey sewn onto the back end of a fish. The original was purchased from Japanese sailors in the South Pacific by an American sea captain in 1822, and it was later exhibited by P.T. Barnum in 1842. Although this specimen was most likely lost in a fire, due to its popularity, others were generated to continue the mythos.