A boozy sour stacked on three spirits — white rum for brightness, rye for a peppery spine, brandy for rounded fruit — pulled into balance by fresh lemon and grenadine. It pours a rosy blush into a chilled coupe, tart up front and gently sweet behind, with a twist of lemon peel lifting the aroma over a strong, warming finish.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Combine white rum, rye whiskey, brandy, lemon juice, and grenadine in a shaker.
shake
Add ice and shake well until chilled.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe glass, served up.
garnish
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
The drink is credited to Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard (1868–1942), a journalist and war correspondent, an attribution that rests on Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Its name pokes fun at Prohibition enforcement: in 1924 the federal government stretched the offshore line for policing liquor from three miles out to twelve, driving the rum-runners' floating parties farther from shore. Today it is widely published as a classic of that dry era, often read as a rye-laced relative of the Three Miller.