plastic passion

1 1/2 oz Rhum Agricole (Gold JM Rhum)
1 oz Lillet Blanc
1 oz Passion Fruit Juice
1 barspoon (1/2 tsp) Pastis
1 dash Orange Blossom Water
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Mix ingredients and pour into a stemmed water glass filled with crushed ice. Stir and garnish with a lemon twist.

Last night's theme on Thursday Drink Night on Mixoloseum, a weekly online cocktail recipe improvisation and chat, was swizzles. Swizzles are often rum (although not always) cocktails prepared over crushed ice and stirred with a multipronged swizzle stick (nothing like the kitchy things you see in bars now). My only exposure to a proper swizzle drink was the Chartreuse Swizzle that Misty made me at Drink (the link has a picture of one their authentic wood swizzle sticks).
For my drink submission, I had the concept of mixing rhum agricole with Lillet for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. Given the recent success we've had using passion fruit juice in cocktails, that was the next ingredient to go in. I figured that a small amount of pastis would give the drink the right amount of flair as it does in Don the Beachcomber's Zombie. I rounded out the drink with some orange flower water to pair up with the Lillet, some Angostura bitters to bring out some extra complexity, and a lemon twist to add a citrus oil nose and a bit of eye candy to the top of the drink. For a name, I considered the hogo or plastic smells in the rhum agricole and the passion fruit and instantly thought of The Cure song "Plastic Passion".

The citrus flavors crossed with the sharpness of the pastis and the Angostura coupled with the funkiness of the rum produced a rather dry and delightful cocktail. The pastis played a rather large role in the aroma of the drink and complemented the smell of the rhum. I do not think that any one at TDN had passion fruit juice on hand to try out the recipe and give any constructive criticism. Lastly, one recipe from last night that I tried out and rather enjoyed was from the RumDood:

Wives of Windsor Swizzle
2 oz London Dry Gin
1/2 oz Falernum
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/2 oz Simple Syrup
Swizzle in a double-old fashioned glass filled with crushed ice and garnish with mint.

Doing the best I could with the ingredients in my kitchen, I used lime juice and homemade grapefruit bitters and no garnish in place of the grapefruit juice and mint sprig. I imagine that the grapefruit version as intended could only be better.