golden heath

1/3 Rum (3/4 oz Lemon Hart 80)
1/3 Sherry (3/4 oz Los Arcos Dry Amontillado)
1/3 Drambuie (3/4 oz)

Shake [sic] with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Stirring would be preferable but written above as described in the recipe.

On Wednesday night, Andrea spotted the Golden Heath in the 1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book and wanted to give the recipe a try. I had been wondering what to do with Drambuie after buying a bottle to make a Rusty Nail for the Anvil's 100 Drink list and she shared in my curiosity. Other than a pair of Prince Edward variants that Misty Kalkofen made me and a Fernet Branca recipe crafted by Emma Hollander, my experience with the liqueur has been rather limited.
For the Golden Heath's rum choice, I opted for Lemon Hart 80 whose smoky notes would complement the Scotch's in the Drambuie. And since the Drambuie is somewhat sweet, I opted for one of our drier sherries. On the nose, the sherry provided a lot of grape notes but I was surprised that its nuttiness did not carry over much into the olfactory sensations. The flavor started out smooth on the tongue and ended spicy in the swallow. Indeed, the drink was rather sweet and rich in front with a lot of flavors and heat at the end. The Golden Heath was plenty sweet so I am glad that we did not choose a sweeter sherry like Lustau's East India Solera. The rum and the Scotch in the Drambuie did pair up nicely as did the rum with the sherry (a combination which I have noted in other cocktails including the Balmy Night). Given the whiskey and the wine components of the recipe, Andrea declared that the drink could be "the kissing cousin of the Manhattan."