El Presidente

It makes a leaner, more herbal drink that tastes like a rum Martini. Blanc vermouth is sweet and floral without the bitterness of rosso, and that softness is most of what holds this together. If dry is all you have, add 5 ml more grenadine to cover the gap.

That is the amount, and it is doing two jobs: a faint amber blush and a rounding of the vermouth's edges. Take it to 15 ml and you lose the dryness that makes this an aperitif. What you get instead is a Bacardi Cocktail with vermouth in it, which is a fine drink but not this one.

It needs the style rather than the passport. Lightly aged and charcoal-filtered is the target, so Havana Club 3 Años, Flor de Caña 4 or Banks 5 all land right, each carrying enough faint oak for the vermouth to lean on. A raw unaged white leaves a hole in the middle.

Orange, and a wide swath of it. Express the oils across the surface before you drop it in. There is only 8 ml of curaçao in the glass and the peel effectively doubles it for nothing. A cherry pulls the drink toward the sweeter end of the Havana repertoire, which is not where this one lives.

A classic El Presidente calls for 60 ml (2 oz) White rum, 30 ml (1 oz) Blanc vermouth, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Triple sec / Cointreau, 4 ml (0.25 oz) Grenadine. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard El Presidente is roughly 31% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.

An El Presidente is shaken. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.