monkey pilot

1 oz Dark Jamaican Rum (Coruba)
1 oz London Dry Gin (Beefeater)
1 oz Orange Juice
1/4 oz Grenadine
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Falernum (Velvet)
1/2 oz Cinnamon Syrup
1 bsp Absinthe (Butterfly)
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a Tiki mug, fill with crushed ice, and garnish with Tiki intent (2 pineapple leaves and an orange twist).

Two Thursdays ago, for Instagram's Tiki the Snow Away, I started brainstorming on paper for some upcoming recipes. One of them which I have not made at the time had banana liqueur in the mix and got dubbed with the word "Monkey" in the title. That got me thinking about the Monkey Gland -- a classic drink that Ted Haigh regenerated interest in via his Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails book and that saw its heyday with the absinthe launches in 2008-09 before it faded away from mention. In my time as a professional bartender, I have neither been asked to make or offered to make a Monkey Gland proper, but the drink has spawned some tasty riffs such as the Glandula del Mono and Monkey Margarita. I wondered if it could be made in a Tiki-like form without the addition of banana liqueur (as was done in the Monkey Paw riff) but by adding other citrus and the appropriate sweeteners to the mix. With absinthe there, I thought about the Jet Pilot, but when I did not want to add a third citrus of grapefruit, I also included elements of the Test Pilot as well.
Given the mash-up of a Monkey Gland and Test/Jet Pilots, I named this one the Monkey Pilot which conjured up a mid-century feel when animals were used in aeronautic tests instead of humans. Once prepared, the Monkey Pilot gave forth orange and fruity aromas. Next, lime and orange joined the dark rum's caramel on the sip, and the swallow shared funky rum, cinnamon, and gin's pine leading into the absinthe's anise notes.