mill lane cocktail

100% Bacardi Rum (2 oz Flor de Caña Añejo Oro)
1 tsp Grenadine (1/2 oz)
Squeeze and drop 1/2 lime in glass (1/2 oz + spent half lime shell)
4 dash absinthe (40 drop St. George)
3 dash Peychaud's Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Two Tuesdays ago, I returned to the 1933 reprint of Jack's Manual and spotted the Mill Lane Cocktail that appeared like a Bacardi Cocktail accented with absinthe and Peychaud's Bitters. What lured me in was the fact that the spent lime shell was included in the shake for extra aromatics and bitterness; I first saw this technique in the Fluffy Ruffles and later in Ensslin's Jack Rose. Moreover, the earliest reference that I could find for it was in Jerry Thomas' 1862 White Lion. In those three recipes, the lime peel in the shake added a sharper, brighter, drier, more bitter, and/or more tropical aspect to the flavor profile that I observed.
The Mill Lane Cocktail also caught my eye for it reminded me of the famous boxing referee Mills Lane despite being the wrong era and the wrong spelling. Once prepared, it proffered a lime oil and anise aroma. Next, lime and berry on the sip slipped into rum, pomegranate, and licorice flavors on the swallow. Indeed, the lime shell donated a brightness to the nose with some bitter complexity that added to the absinthe and Peychaud's notes.