Item: Rum » Rum (dark)

The Reverb Crash

Funny that the first Tiki drink I write about is not of those famous drinks such as Mai Tai or Zombie. There is more fun because my Tiki season has started when summer comes to the end. Anyway, I’m drinking Tiki cocktails from time to time during last three years but get only just ready for writing about it.

My choice was a bit spontaneous. I was in mood for something exotic when buying two big pink grapefruits in a local store. Juiced, they’ve provided me with a 0.5L bottle of fresh grapefruit juice, and that was a reason for making grapefruit inspired Tiki drink.

So I’ve switched over to The Reverb Crash, a relatively new Tiki cocktail in which grapefruit juice works with passion fruit syrup and rum.

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Old Fashioned. The story continues

For me, Old Fashioned cocktail is a pure inspiration. I love it made in traditional way with bourbon and also I love to tweak a bit the cocktail’s classic recipe.

My first post is dedicated to normal Old Fashioned. Current one is about all Old Fashioned variations I love so much.

In my work I applied two basic methods: a) to change a spirit and b) to replace (partially) syrup with a liqueur. Additionally I was trying to combine various bitters and extracts.

Another method  is to mix two or more brown spirits. In my opinion that’s a tricky way and today I feel I’m not ready to go in for these experiments. Now I just adopt another bloggers’ practices, and my latest effort was theSpeakista’s cocktail called Final Five. That’s not Old Fashioned but I dare suppose it a cocktail in Old Fashioned style. In any case, I’ve made two cocktail in similar manner and wrote about it below.

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Inaugural Orange Punch

It was first time when I made punch. There is no tradition to drink punches so for me it was something strange.  After long time of hesitation I started to look for a decent punch recipe, and Bombay Punch from Harry Johnson’s «New And Improved Bartendes’ Manual» was the option I scrutinized. But unexpectedly I’ve chose another recipe that I’ve saw recently at Chuck Taggart’s Looka! blog.

That was Andrew Jackson’s Inaugural Orange Punch containing interesting mulled orange syrup. I love to make and to use handcrafted components so I started my preparations immediately.

By the way, Chuck give a link to the source for the punch, the article in The Wall Street Journal by Eric Felten.

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Dark and Stormy

When I’ve made my first batch of ginger beer, I realized that I hardly ever drink it neat. It was too dry and burning for me. But there was an advantage – I could give a try to cocktails based on ginger beer, at last!

At first I’ve tried Dark and Stormy cocktail, a powerful combination of dark rum and spicy ginger beer.

Bermuda’s national drink, Dark and Stormy is deeply rooted in the traditional daily portions of rum served out in British Navy. The cocktail calls for Bermudian Gosling’s Black Seal Rum and local ginger beer. Very strict conditions, isn’t it?

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Bananas Foster Cocktail

This cocktail is adapted from Bananas Foster Cocktail created by Shawn from Rejiggered. According to his words, he made it as liquid version of Bananas Foster dessert he enjoyed at one New Orleans restaurant.

For me, it was just one more cocktail experience in which I had a training how to properly use cream in cocktails. Honestly I was skeptical about this cocktail because usually I prefer bitter and strong drinks. But I was wrong and eventually ended up in love with sweet creamy cocktails.

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Appleton Estate V/X Jamaican Rum

Here in Russia where winter lasts from November to April at the best, words “Jamaican rum” usually mean sunny weather, sea breeze and siesta with decent ice-cold drink. And what do we think about when speaking about Jamaican rum? My very first thoughts are always about Appleton rums.

I’m not mad about rum. That’s not the spirit I prefer to use in my favourite drinks. But one day I saw a bottle of Appleton Estate V/X standing on the shelf in supermarket, and something drove me to buy it immediately. I think it was my hate towards cold weather because this winter was abnormally cold.

Sources in the Internet said that Appleton Estate V/X is the blend of fifteen rum aged between five and ten years. All spirits are distilled in copper still pots. Rums are aged in Jack Daniel’s Tennesee whisky casks made of American oak and then charred. After blending rums are marriaged in casks for months before bottling.

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