honey fitz

1 1/2 oz Zacapa 23 Year Rum
3/4 oz Honey Syrup
3/4 oz Grapefruit Juice
2 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Yes, I traveled all the way down to New Orleans to have Jackson Cannon of Eastern Standard make me drinks. The Honey Fitz was the first one at the Diageo Happy Hour and the second was two nights later at the Bartenders' Breakfast. While I did not get the recipe for Jackson's second cocktail, I do have this keepsake photo to remember it by:
The Honey Fitz was the perfect cocktail for Jackson to present as it highlights his family's pedigree as political historians. The drink "was created in honor of John Francis 'Honey Fitz' Fitzgerald, an Irish-American politician and the namesake and maternal grandfather of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. In 1906, Fitzgerald was elected Mayor of Boston, becoming the first American-born Irish-Catholic to be elected to that office."

I could not find a record of the Honey Fitz in the cocktail tapestries, so I assume that Jackson created this drink to honor an event that fell within the 1900-1910 decade. The drink is a rum variation of the De Rigueur and Brown Derby Cocktails with the addition of Peychaud's Bitters. Zacapa is dark and spicy enough of a spirit to make a decent substitution for those drinks' Bourbon and rye whiskey. In the drink, the grapefruit flavors and rum's richness played on the sip along with the honey's sweetness. These flavors were chased by Peychaud's Bitters and Zacapa's spice notes on the swallow. In terms of Boston political cocktails, the Honey Fitz is a good step ahead of the Ward Eight in my book.