golden lillet martini

2 oz Aged Rhum Agricole (JM Rhum Gold)
1 1/2 oz Lillet Blanc
1/4 oz Limoncello

Moisten rim of cocktail glass with a lemon slice and lightly coat rim with brown sugar. Stir ingredients with ice and strain into said cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
The weekend before last, Andrea was flipping through the Food & Wine 2008 Cocktails book that we got for cheap at the Crate & Barrel outlet store in Maine. When she spotted this recipe, I was a little taken aback by the name (see my disclaimer below), but something in the simplicity of the recipe combined with my love of rhum agricoles and Lillet took over. The recipe stems from The Edison bar in Los Angeles where John Gertsen and Misty Kalkofen, both of Drink here in Boston, recently did a guest bartending stint. Indeed, this drink was aggressively rhum agricole flavored. The citrus appeared at the end of the swallow where it mingled with some of the rhum's rubber notes. The combination of Lillet, limoncello, and the twist offered citrus flavors but not the tartness often associated with it. While I am not usually a proponent of sugared rims, the brown sugar in this one worked well with the rhum agricole to temper the rhum's rubber notes. And strangely, as the cocktail warmed up, the rhum agricole became less aggressive and let some of the other flavors come forward to achieve a better balance.

Disclaimer: CocktailVirginSlut does not promote calling drinks like this a Martini which should be reserved for gin with vermouth (and preferably a healthy slug of fresh vermouth, and personally other aromatized wines are fair game) and perhaps some bitters. Vodka ones are vodka cocktails, whiskey ones are Manhattans, and rum ones are Pirate Cocktails (although for some hypocritical reason I let the term Rum Manhattan slide). I was recently bothered by an interview with a collector of vintage barware published in Boston's Stuff@Night magazine. When asked what sort of Martini the man preferred, he answered "I don't believe that anything served up in a Martini glass is a Martini. A Manhattan served in a Martini glass is a Manhattan. It's a cocktail and people like them, but calling it some kind of Martini doesn't make it a Martini." And when he describes his preferred Martini, he declared "I can't drink gin, so I'd say anything with vodka" before describing his preferred Gibson recipe. Hmm.