rum brooklyn

1 oz La Favorite Vieux Rhum Agricole
1 oz Berkshire Mountain Distillers Ragged Mountain Rum
1/2 oz Housemade Amer Picon
1/4 oz Punt e Mes
1 barspoon Maraschino
1 barspoon Dolin Sweet Vermouth
1 barspoon Dolin Dry Vermouth
1 dash Housemade Aromatic Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass. Twist an orange peel over the top and discard.

For my second drink at Deep Ellum on Wednesday, Max Toste wanted to show me one of his new rum blending experiments. Last time he made me a Four Rum Manhattan, and this time, the rum to rye swap was with the Brooklyn. Instead of the whiskey, Max used a combination of an aged Massachusetts' distilled rum and an aged rhum agricole. Max poured me a small taste of the La Favorite Rhum Agricole and I was suprised at how smokey it was -- about as intense as its plasticky hogu notes.

The Rum Brooklyn started with an orange oil nose which later paired with the housemade Picon orange liqueur on the taste. The drink was a fine balance of sweetness and rhum agricole intensity, and the richness of the aged rums worked well with the vermouth and Punt e Mes notes. While the end of the sip contained a rounded set of bitter notes, the Picon's orange flavors were the ones that lingered well after the swallow. Max's Brooklyn was a lot more intense than the Old Overholt Rye ones I used to drink at Eastern Standard's bar back in the days before the domestic Amer Picon supply ran dry and the drink was sadly lifted off the menu.