slow hands

1 1/2 oz Hayman's Navy Gin
1/2 oz Overproof Barbancourt 110° White Rhum
1/2 oz Comoz Blanc Vermouth
1/2 tsp Petite Canne Syrup
1/2 tsp Kalani Coconut Liqueur
1/2 tsp Giffard Pineapple Liqueur
1 dash Boker's Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a footed rocks glass. Tuesday night of Portland Cocktail Week, I made my pilgrimage to Rum Club where I found a seat in front of bartender Mike "Juice" Treffehn. I asked Mike which of the drinks on the menu would be most easily reproduced by a home bartender, and he selected the Slow Hands as a tropical Martini with a gin over rum split base akin to the 1930s Portorico or my Preston-Baker. Once mixed, the Slow Hands carressed the senses with a dark spice and tropical aroma with pineapple and coconut elements dancing on the nose. Next, a coconut and white wine sip with a decent mouthfeel led into gin, rum, coconut, pineapple, and spice flavors on the swallow. After this drink, a Rhum Barbancourt special menu with $5 cocktails started, so I stayed for two more drinks, and I had another one or two from him two days later (see below). Sometime during the later point of the night, a bartender sitting next to me, Greg McDonald from Jacksonville, Florida, was tasting rum pours, and declared, "I want my rum to taste the way my socks smell. It's got to be funky." And Rum Club certainly had the bottles to fulfill his request and price range. When I saw Mike later in the week at an official event as a guest bartender at another bar across town, he said that he had something for me. I felt honored that he thought of me, until I learned that I was being Iced™. Mike was a good sport when I asked whether I could skip taking a knee to down this twelve ounces of delightful malt beverage since I was "getting old," and he agreed. It was actually that I did not want to kneel in the one pair of pants I brought onto the floor of a wacky industry event, but six of one half dozen the other. The next drink I got from him was at least voluntary which was a layback of the mezcal that they were mixing with the sponsor Mr. Black in one of the many coffee-flavored drinks that night.