periodista

Juice of 1/2 Lime (1/2 oz)
1 barspoon Sugar
1/4 oz Apricot Liqueur (Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot)
1/4 oz Triple Sec (Cointreau)
1 1/2 oz White Rum (Treaty Oak)

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime peel.

On Wednesday after drinking the D.J., I was in a rum mood and decided to make the Periodista from Charles Schumann's American Bar. We bought Schumann's book when we were trying to help solve Devin Hahn's inquiries about this drink. The Periodista has become a staple menu item of the Boston craft cocktail scene, yet only Schumann's (and Food and Wine: Cocktails 2006) have the recipe and, as Devin discovered, very few places outside of Boston are familiar with this drink. This dilemma bothered Devin so much that he set out on a quest to answer this riddle. Historically, the drink gained popularity with reporters at Cuban bars during the 1962 Missile Crisis and was named after the Spanish word for journalist. Devin traced the putative Boston origins of the drink back to Chez Henri and was able to gain a handle of its diaspora to places like Eastern Standard (where I had my first Periodista back in 2007) and the B-Side. The Boston Periodista, unlike Schumann's, uses dark rum, often Goslings, and this is the recipe that appears in Food and Wine: Cocktails 2006 using Harvard Square's Noir bar's recipe:

• 1 1/2 oz Dark Rum
• 1/2 oz Cointreau (or other triple sec)
• 1/2 oz Apricot-flavored Brandy
• 1/2 oz Lime Juice
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Devin turned his search into an interesting series of blog posts, and the Periodista might be to Devin as the holy Pegu Club is to Doug. His research into this "seductive cousin of the Daiquiri" is definitely worth a read.
With the Treaty Oak rum, our Periodistas had a glorious vanilla note that mingled well with the lime oil in the nose. A sweet lime sip was followed by an orange-apricot swallow that mixed with vegetal elements of the rum. Overall, the drink was rather magnificent -- from the very smooth yet flavorful light rum to the right amount of lime juice to balance the liqueurs' sweetness. Moreover, the pairing of orange and apricot has always been a good one. Indeed, the fruit liqueurs do change the drink drastically from the classic Daiquiri, similar to how a Daisy can be very different from a Sour.