King James

Name: King James
Yield: 1 cocktail
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 1 oz Rum; 1 oz Brandy; ¾ oz Sweet vermouth; ¼ oz Dry curaçao; 2 dashes Maraschino liqueur; 2 dashes Angostura bitters; garnish Orange twist

Rum and brandy split the base, with sweet vermouth and a little dry curaçao rounding them off. Stirred, aromatic, old-fashioned in the best sense.

Splitting a base between two spirits is an underused move at home. This is a good place to find out what it buys you.

King James

Nick & Nora · None

Ingredients

1 ozRum
1 ozBrandy
¾ ozSweet vermouth
¼ ozDry curaçao
2 dashesMaraschino liqueur
2 dashesAngostura bitters
garnishOrange twist

Method

1
Chill a Nick & Nora glass before building.
2
Combine rum, brandy, sweet vermouth, dry curaçao, maraschino liqueur, and Angostura bitters in a mixing glass.
3
Add ice and stir for 20–25 seconds until well-chilled and properly diluted.
4
Strain into the chilled Nick & Nora glass.
5
Express the orange twist over the surface of the drink, run it around the rim, and place it on the edge of the glass to garnish.

History

The King James is Redbird bar director Tobin Shea's riff on the classic East India cocktail — a pre-Prohibition stirred drink built on brandy with tropical fruit and liqueur accents. Shea splits the base between rum and brandy, swaps pineapple for sweet vermouth, and uses maraschino as a whisper of sweetness, producing a richer, more spirit-forward take on the original.

Pro tip

The split base here is the whole game — choose a quality aged rum with some funk and body (a Barbadian or Jamaican expression works well) so it holds its own against the brandy rather than disappearing into it. A VS or VSOP Cognac is the right call for the brandy; anything younger will taste thin, anything older is money you won't taste. Keep your stir disciplined — this drink is already complex, and over-dilution will flatten it fast.

Source

Tobin Shea, Redbird, Los Angeles — as published in Imbibe Magazine