Whip shake with crushed ice, pour into a mug, top with crushed ice, and garnish with mint sprigs.
A bitter and funky take on the classic Tradewinds.
My open can of Coco Lopez had me thinking about the Tradewinds, and its apricot liqueur made me consider how well bitter liqueurs would work in there. My original idea was to do a Ferrari-based (Fernet-Campari) riff, but the flavors ended up too muddied, so I changed it up by dropping the Fernet from that and returning it to being a bit more rum-driven. Nixing the Fernet over the Campari was a no brainer for the latter works rather well with apricot liqueur such as in the A Study in Pink and the Jungle Hotel Bird. The apricot also pointed me to its synergy with Swedish punsch which I learned about in the Havana Cocktail, and Swedish punsch works great with Campari from a trio of drinks I had in 2012 – namely, Sleeping with Strangers, Barefoot in the Dark, and Deck Hand. For a name, I dubbed it the Sidewinds named after a breezes that can blow a moving object off its direction of travel.