Didn't have Don Q Gran Anejo, so made this with another light, Spanish style, column distilled aged rum (Ron Matusalem 18 year solera), along with Ango orange bitters and Lustau Don Nuno oloroso.  Quite nice, I enjoyed it.  For an old fashioned style drink, this goes down exceedingly easy, with the vanilla and caramel notes of the rum nicely complimented by the nutty, dried fruit notes of the sherry, with a touch of citrus from the orange.  Given the base, it is somewhat light, so I'd suggest going easy on the stir count.  I didn't get much from the cinnamon syrup myself (and I used a pretty strong sous vide cinnamon syrup), might try swapping out the mole bitters for the cinnamon bomb Fee Brother's Barrel Aged bitters next time.

Thanks for trying it. I haven't had that Matusalem. I don't think of the DQGA as especially light in body for its style. (Although, like all Don Q rums, the flavors are fairly ethereal—the other ingredients are just working to amplify them here.) That said, this is certainly a lighter drink for its category, compared to an OF-style drink made with a fuller-bodied or more robustly flavored rum. I used Grant's "La Garrocha" Oloroso, which is fairly intense and concentrated (as well as tannic), as a way of anchoring the structure a bit. Thanks again.

What a smart way of elevating rum with sherry. And I love how the bitters and cinnamon syrup play together.

While it has that "mildly diesel" characteristic that some rums and sherries have, it has it in the best way possible. Truly a worthy successor of the Old-Fashioned, and if more beverage programs carried Oloroso Sherry as a matter of course, this would already be considered a modern classic on par with the Oaxacan Old-Fashioned. Is the oxidative taste of oloroso an acquired taste? Sure! But no more so than the smokiness of Islay scotch or mezcal is an acquired taste. It pairs amazingly with an aged rum and the resulting combination brings to mind an excellent solera rum. Great slow sipper. For my taste, I admit I prefer a plain Diplomatico old-fashioned with Mole bitters, but I can appreciate well-achieved balance when I see it, even if the drink isn't for me. The faint cinnamon touch really rounds out the drink. I used Juliette Laroui's recipe for cinnamon syrup, which works nicely with the sherry already in this spec. In a nutshell? Exquisite.

It feels like the drink is pulled in two directions, finishing much different than how it started.

Go a skant 0.75 oz on the simple syrup.

Made this and then made a 2nd with falernum

The SeriousEats article has it as sweet vermouth and an unflamed orange twist; this entry which cites it has Punt e Mes and a flamed one. Not sure what happened.

Fred, I've has drink at the restaurant and I'm pretty sure this was the build.  It's also listed here: http://barnotes.co/recipes/rodeo-ghost-from-west-of-pecos

I found that one too but it lacked a pedigree (BarNotes is a wild west).

I did find a recipe in Drink Me magazine that was a perfect with sweet and dry vermouth. Food & Wine does not mention the sweet vermouth in a Negroni changing to Punt e Mes (they listed every other component "The Rodeo Ghost substitutes bittersweet Zucca amaro for Campari and mezcal for the usual gin. It's finished with mole bitters.") and every one of the restaurant's websites I could find in articles, photos, etc. just lists the ingredient as "vermouth."

I stuck with the recipe as published in Serious Eats despite thinking that it would be better with Punt e Mes. I just feel that there should be a note that the recipe above does not mention the reference link.

Postnote: I just found the cocktail menu from their site that lists it as "grapefruit-infused vermouth" which adds another wrinkle. Perhaps they use Punt e Mes when they're out of grapefruit-infused vermouth or perhaps the recipe has drifted through the years. Also, you can't really propose a recipe to Serious Eats that requires a specialty infusion.

Fair enough.  Due to an unfortunate iCloud blunder I lost some of my earlier bar notes and recipes; I had tried this one at the bar sometime in the winter of 2012/13 and asked for the recipe.  I would note that in the BarNotes thread, someone from Blackbird Bar (which is where Brent previously was the bar manager, and I know that some bartenders worked at both places) chimed in with the authorship and that they had served a lot of them.  I would think they would have corrected the recipe if it was incorrect, but again, not definitive.

Bourbon dominated. Adjust ratios.

Moins de sirop

0.5 oz of Ancho Reyes provides plenty of spice. I could see a cherry garnish with this.