[la pagerie]

1 1/2 oz Rhum JM Gold
3/4 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Fee Brothers' Orgeat

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top with 2 oz soda, garnish with a lime wedge, and add a straw.

Two Tuesdays ago, Andrea and I met up at Rendezvous after my dinner shift at work was over. Our mission was to get at least one last (late) dinner there before the restaurant changes owners, names, and barstaff. For a few months shy of 6 years, we have been been sitting at Scott Holliday's bar, and it was time to squeeze in a final rendezvous. For a drink, Scott mentioned that he had crafted something in the Collins vein with rhum agricole to deplete the bar's stock of it. Since the recipe lacked a name, I took a page from Ted Gallagher's Josephine's Bath and dubbed it La Pagerie after the family home in Martinique of Napoléon Bonaparte's first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
The drink began with a grassy rhum agricole nose with additional almond and lime aromas. Next, the sip was a cross between a sweet richness from the orgeat and a crispness from the lime. Finally, the rhum agricole appeared on the swallow where it was smoothed over by the orgeat's almond notes.