lander's punch

1 oz Appleton V/X Rum (Appleton Reserve)
1 oz Tanqueray Malacca or No. 10 Gin (Malacca)
1 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Demerara Syrup

Shake with ice, strain into a double old fashioned glass filled with ice cubes or a large ice sphere (large cube), and garnish with freshly graded nutmeg and orange peel.

Two Wednesdays ago, I looked to the 2016 The Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book for the evening's libation. In searching for something citrussy, I ended upon the Lander's Punch that had a curious split spirits base of gin and rum. Gin and rum have paired well together in old drinks like the Sirius and new ones like the Astoria, Oregon, and Privateer Rum does make a rum-based gin (or a gin out of cane neutral spirits); however, the combination still struck me as a bit quirky. The recipe stemmed from bartender and book author Frank Caiafa looking at the Lander's recipe of the 1935 The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book with equal parts Jamaican rum, Gordon's Gin, French vermouth, and lemon juice and wondering what he could do with it. Even with making the vermouth a blanc and the rum a slightly sweetened one like Tanqueray Malacca left the Lander's rather tart. Instead, he split the lemon component with syrup to make a better balanced libation that he renamed Lander's Punch.
The Lander's Punch began with an orange and woody spice aroma; the nose was extra orange-y for I interpreted the instructions as freshly grating an orange peel, but it could be parsed as adding an orange twist which would yield something a bit more subtle to the nose. Next, a somewhat sweet white wine and lemon sip gave way to caramel rum transitioning into drier gin and vermouth notes on the swallow that were perhaps made a bit tart on the finish by the citrus.