Passion Fruit Cocktail

Having tried passion fruit with pisco, my next experiment was to try it with rum. Ed Hamilton mentioned that one of his favorite drinks was rhum agricole, mixed with passion fruit, lime and a little cane syrup. So rhum agricole was my starting point. . .
Passion Fruit Rhum
1 ½ oz rhum blanc
pulp of 1 passion fruit (about 1 oz)
juice of ½ a lime
1 ½ tsp golden syrup (substituting for cane syrup)
Put the passion fruit pulp in a highball glass and give a quick muddle to help break down the seeds. Add ½ a lime cut into wedges and muddle some more. Add syrup and stir. Add rhum, then finish with crushed ice.
This is great. The aromatic rhum agricole is an amazing match for the passion fruit. A simple and excellent drink. You have to try one of these. It does no harm to also try this with an aged rhum.
I just dumped the passion fruit pulp into the glass because I was too lazy to wait for the juice to drip through a sieve, and anyway I thought the pulp would look nice. If you do not like my method you can use the following Caribbean trick.
 Place the pulp in a sieve over your glass, press with a spoon to extract as much of the juice as you can, then pour your rum through the remaining pulp. This way you will really get the last of the juice out. Of course now some of your rum is sitting in the spent pulp. Life is all about trade offs.
Given the aromatic nature of passion fruit and rhum agricole, I couldn’t help wondering how they would fare when paired with maraschino, an aromatic liqueur.
Passion Fruit, Rhum and Maraschino Daiquiri
2 oz St. James White
¾ oz passion fruit pulp
½ oz lime juice
½ oz maraschino
Shake hard over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
This was on the thin and sour side, without the passion fruit leaping out to assert itself, but oddly moreish. Again it needs some work, probably including some more sugar, and was not what I expected. However, the whole maraschino, passion fruit, and rhum agricole thing is worth exploring further. These are three highly aromatic and funky ingredients, and their combination makes a very interesting sour. I may come back to this some time.
Passion Fruit Nacional Daiquiri
2 oz Cuban Rum (I used Havana Club Blanco)
1 oz passion fruit juice
½ oz lime juice
1 tsp dry apricot brandy (i.e. eau de vie)
2 tsp gomme syrup (or substitute simple syrup)
Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
I used a generous dose of gomme syrup to add body. Passion fruit can have a thin and grainy mouth feel that is best counteracted.
This is very quaffable but not a stand out. I was hoping for the passion fruit and dry apricot brandy to work a little magic as they had in the Fitzcarraldo, my recent pisco experiment. They partner up nicely, but something seems to be lacking.
The drink is still kind of sour and thin. One idea could be to make a 50/50 split between passion fruit and pineapple – pineapple would add more body. Another idea could be to change the rum. There are two possible directions, using the 3 year old Havana Club to give a little more body and sweetness, or using a rhum agricole to increase the dry aromatic element (and simultaneously perhaps up the sugar).