tropical cocktail

1 1/4 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
3/4 oz Maraschino Liqueur (Luxardo)
3/4 oz Creme de Cacao
1 dash Orange Bitters (Angostura Orange)

Stir with ice and strain into a wine glass.

For the after-dinner portion of the vermouth cocktail pair, I brought forth a recipe I found in the 1946 Stork Club Bar Book. When I first saw the Tropical Cocktail, I was intrigued because the drink lacks rum as well as fruit juice of any sort that might be expected from the name alone. The call for dry vermouth did not surprise me greatly as it made sense as a sweetness neutralizer to the two liqueurs; what did surprise or perhaps amuse me was that the liqueurs provided more alcohol to the drink than the vermouth that seemed to be acting like the base spirit.
The Tropical Cocktail possessed a fruity nose from the Maraschino supplemented by the orange from the bitters. The sip contained a lot of Creme de Cacao notes, and this continued on in the swallow as a chocolate-cherry flavor that was supplemented by botanical notes from the vermouth and bitters. One of the best flavor pairings was the sharp note of the Noilly Prat complementing the funkiness of the Maraschino liqueur. Overall, the dry vermouth did a good job as a balancer in this recipe; indeed, I could tell from the body that there was a high sugar content in the drink, but the drink did not seem cloyingly sweet.