the preston-baker

1 1/2 oz Gin (Beefeater)
1/2 oz Rhum Agricole (Clement Premiere Canne)
3/4 oz Blanc Vermouth (Dolin) (*)
1/4 oz Crème de Banane (Giffard)
2 dash Orange Bitters (Regan's)

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a lemon twist.
(*) Drink was initially made with dry vermouth (Noilly Prat), but in remaking it, blanc vermouth seemed to round out the edges better.

Two Mondays ago, I thought about my tropical Martini riff, the Diamond Queen, and how a split base of white spirits, vermouth, and a touch of fruity element worked so well. Moreover, I thought about the banana-tinged riff on the Manhattan, the Zemurray that I recently had, and I wondered if I could do a similar Martini with a hint of banana. Keeping the gin, dry vermouth, and orange bitters of the classic Martini, I substituted some of the gin with rhum agricole, and I added in a dash of crème de banana. While I liked the end result, it was a bit rough from the rhum agricole and I remade it later with better effect using blanc vermouth.
For a name, I made this drink a tribute to Boston fruit seller Andrew Preston & Wellfleet ship captain Lorenzo Baker who teamed up in the 1870s to start importing bananas to Boston. This ventured soon morphed into the Boston Fruit Company that later merged with Zemurray's and other tropical fruit importing ventures to form the United Fruit Company that was later became Chiquita. In the glass, the Preston-Baker cocktail gave forth a lemon oil aroma with tropicals fruit in a grassy pineapple way. Next, a white wine sip led into juniper, grassy, and subtle banana flavors on the swallow.