blue parrot

1 oz Batavia Arrack
1 oz El Dorado White Rum
1/2 oz Grand Marnier
1/2 oz Bols Blue Curaçao
1/2 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice. Top with a ~1/2 oz Henri Bardouin Pastis float, add a straw, and garnish with a wide lemon twist.

On Wednesday last week, I met Andrea at Eastern Standard for dinner. For one of my drinks, bartender Josh Taylor made me the new house original, the Blue Parrot, off of their menu's Tikisms section. I later discovered that there is another Blue Parrot that is rather reminiscent of the Surfer on Acid and contains Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Maui Blue Hawaiian Schnapps, and pineapple juice. Luckily, the only things these two Blue Parrots have in common are rum and blueness. But wait, blue Curaçao at Eastern Standard? When I asked Josh about it, he stated that they had it left over from a post-Valentine's Day event a while back. I was there that night back in 2009 when the theme was 4th of July (in February) and recalled the red, white, and blue drinks (I believe that I tried the red before switching over to beer-and-Fernet-shots in exchange for my drink tickets). Josh was amused when I pointed out that the stock now had over 2 years of dust on it.
I was wary of the drink idea at first, but the base of Batavia Arrack and El Dorado white rum won me over. Essentially, the Eastern Standard Blue Parrot is a rum Sidecar (a/k/a X.Y.Z.) served over crushed ice with a pastis float. The Blue Parrot greeted me with a lemon and anise aroma from the twist and pastis float, respectively. Once I got over the awe of the blueness, I took a sip which contained the citrus notes from lemon juice and orange liqueurs. The swallow though contained the bite of the Batavia Arrack and white rum coupled with the crispness of the lemon juice. Toward the end, I reached the comforting anise-flavored bomb from the float which distracted me from the eerie blue-stained crushed ice in my nearly drained glass.