This drink, from Jim Meehan of PDT, really began with the rum. More specifically, it began with Joseph Banks—an eighteenth-century explorer and Captain Cook’s sidekick on his first voyage. The 5-Island rum used in this drink is a tribute to Banks and Cook’s maiden voyage, as is the East India, an old-school style of sherry that was originally matured in the same way as early madeira (via tumultuous sea voyage on masted ships). “The rum takes its namesake from a dude who would’ve been on the same ship that the East India sherry would’ve traveled in,” says Meehan. The interplay of the subtle funk of the rum with the raisiny woodiness of Lustau’s East India sherry makes for a cocktail that drinks like a Negroni best consumed near the equator.
Reprinted with permission from Sherry, by Talia Baiocchi, copyright 2014. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House LLC.