take the long way home

1 oz Angostura 5 Year Rum
3/4 oz Blandy's 5 Year Sercial Madeira (*)
3/4 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/2 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
3-4 Mint Leaves

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Float a lightly spanked small mint leaf.
(*) Another dry style like Verdelho would work here, but sweeter styles like Bual and Malmsey would shift the balance.
For one of the Yacht Rock Sunday cocktail lists, I was thinking about what else could be done with Madeira. As a starting point, I turned to the rye-based Throw the Horns and extracted the Madeira, Maraschino, and grapefruit triad. Indeed, Madeira and Maraschino have often been paired through the last century in recipes, but the grapefruit seemed like a great new direction. Instead of bitters in the Throw the Horns, I thought about keeping it lighter and more seasonal with mint. Therefore, I also took some elements from the Seventh Heaven and Sensation and combined them all into a rum-based drink. For a name, I scanned the 150 song playlist for Sundays and found the Take the Long Way Home. Ignoring the song's shameful outskirting path in the lyrics, I focused more on finding interesting botanicals (such as flowers for Tiki drinks) on my long walks home from the bar at night, or perhaps finding blackberries and blueberries on long hikes through the woods and hills. I did tinker with the Maraschino amount here and had swapped half of it for simple syrup, but that version fell short on flavor for me even though it had the right sweet-tart balanced.