It's sweet for sure, but with a bracing bitterness from the fernet so it doesn't taste cloying at all. Can definitely taste each part of the mix and agree with other comments that the fernet + suze is lovely, and I tend to think maybe more so with the Letherbee fernet I used that has a bit more saffron. Very nice.

Good but a bit too sweet. I did 1/2 of the Benedictine and then did 1/2 of an herbal liquor and then 1/4 of Laphroig and it seems a bit better balanced.

Yes. Most drinks like the 100 Year Old Cigar take that 2 oz spirit, 1/2 oz Cynar, 1/2 oz Benedictine structure. I found 1:1:1 enjoyable but on the richer end of my limits.

I tend to share the preference for more spirit-forward and less sweet drinks.

However, I read this particular cocktail more as an amaro- and peat- modified B&B. The bottled version of B&B is 60% Bénédictine, and so we remain roughly in the ballpark here. Using a younger higher proof spirit works here too.

While making this drink, we thought that the recipe called for a lot of absinthe, and, indeed, when we sipped it, the absinthe overpowered the drink. We added another 1/3rd oz. of rum. That helped, but not enough. We had a bottle of ginger-honey syrup and added 1/2 oz of that. That gave the drink more balance, moving it away from the very strong absinthe. In the future, we will either follow that same scheme or simply lower the amount of absinth and leaven the drink with some syrup--either ginger or ginger-honey.