cleirmeil

1 1/2 oz Aged Rum (El Dorado 12)
3/4 oz Green Chartreuse
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Maple Syrup
1/8 oz Allspice Dram (St. Elizabeth's)

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

After dinner on Sunday night, it was time for another cocktail. Since the Sherry Cobbler was so old school, I decided to shift gears and make a newer drink which led me to the Rogue Cocktails book. The drink was created by Maksym Pazuniak of the Cure in New Orleans and he named it in a hurry due to a deadline by googling for "voodoo gods". Clermeil is a Voodoo god who makes rivers overflow when angered, which is rather appropriate given New Orlean's history. A quick search found a Huffington Post article that agreed, "Noted religious entrepreneur Jerry Falwell blamed Katrina's destruction on HIS God's anger over rampant fun and too much sex with too many people in New Orleans. He should have blamed Clermeil, the Voodoo God who, when angered makes rivers overflow. Everybody knows it was Clermeil who did it."
The cocktail itself was a delight to drink despite its slightly unattractive hue. On the nose, I got the Chartreuse but Andrea picked up more on the allspice dram aromas. The maple syrup did not make the drink too sweet like I had feared and it provided a good balance to the lime, Chartreuse, and dram. It also added a grand mouthfeel to the drink, even more so than gomme syrup. Apparently Maks found the maple syrup a bit too mouth coating and later switched to cleaner tasting reduced cane syrup; this change led him to rename the drink Cane & Abel. Our rum choice was El Dorado 12 Year which is a rather richly flavored rum; however, it did get dominated in this drink and only appeared at the end of the swallow. If I were compare the drink to another, I would have to call this a rum Last Word variation (despite the rum being double the equal parts proportion) where the maple syrup and dram functioned a lot like the Maraschino liqueur in the traditional version.