patois

1 1/2 oz Rhum Agricole Blanc (Clement)
1 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
1/4 oz Benedictine
1/4 oz Amer Picon (Torani Amer)

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with an orange twist.

Two Fridays ago after returning home from work, I was in the mood for rhum agricole but was too tired to search for a new recipe. Therefore, I became inspired by the flavors of the Creole Cocktail especially after tinkering with it to make it into a Floridita Daiquiri riff, the Creolita, a few weeks back. Here, I took things in a dry vermouth direction akin to the Georgetown Club that Charles H. Baker Jr. wrote about but with different rum and with the Benedictine-Picon duo instead of falernum. For a name, I dubbed this Creole meets a Martinique Martini the Patois which is "Antillean Creole spoken in Martinique with elements of Carib, English, and African languages."
The Patois awoke the senses with orange oil over grassy funk on the nose. Next, a crisp sip with hints of orange wandered into grassy funk and herbal orange on the swallow. The agricole, Benedictine, and orange liqueur combination did remind me a little of the 'Ti Punch riff, the Homere Punch. I later retried this drink with blanc vermouth, but the extra sweetness seemed to obscure the wonderful flavors of the rhum and other ingredients; perhaps splitting the vermouth might provide a more rounded drink, but I quite enjoyed it as it was the first time.