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Denizen Rum

April 18, 2013

The Rebirth of Rum | Rum For All (Seasons)

Fresh off the heels of one of the year’s premier rum events, Rum For All Rumbustious Rum Bar at Astor Center NYC, Denizen Rum continues to turn heads in the world of spirits by showing extraordinarily in blind tastings and beyond. We were extremely lucky to take part in this elite, invite-only group of rum producers chosen by none other than spirits guru F Paul Pacult, co-founder of the Beverage Alcohol Resource (B.A.R) program which has educated a who’s who list of the most well known spirits and cocktails professionals in the world.

Rum For All was created to showcase a group of producers, largely with their province in the Carribean Islands, in order to elevate rum to its rightful place as a venerable spirit alongside the cults of Whiske(y) and Cognac which “deserve the spotlight but none more so than the most versatile and agreeable spirit on the planet, Rum” as its manifesto states.

“Rum For All is a unique and impartial initiative supported by Rum producers with the express goal of bringing due respect to Rum’s singular role as a world-class adult beverage of pedigree, elegance and versatility.”

-F. Paul Pacault

Rum is inexorably intertwined with the Caribbean, which is easy to comprehend when observing that most of the world’s sugar cane has been grown here since the grass was introduced by Columbus. Rum is the most varied and versatile of all spirits, being that it’s only qualification to ostensibly be Rum is that it be made from sugar cane. It comes in a dizzying range of forms from light to dark, not to mention the world of spiced and flavored versions that have recently gained global popularity. Rum can be sipped straight or served in a huge number of classic and contemporary cocktails. 
Cask aged versions of Rum have been attracting great attention lately and with good reason. Rum has been aged in cask nearly since its invention due to the long trips across the world in barrels and has taken its rightful place alongside the world’s great sipping spirits. Our own noble blend of Aged White rums is immeasurably affected by it’s resting in whiskey barrels in the hot climate of the Carribean, where experts say that aging oak can be tripled in intensity and therefore happen in a much shorter time, due to the extreme temperatures that allow the wood and spirit to interact. Above all, as Rum for All points out, “Rum is for all seasons”. “When it’s hot, a refreshing and fruity Rum cocktail cools you. When you are relaxing after dinner, a glass of aged Rum satisfies you, and when the temperature dips, a hot buttered Rum warms you. It’s time to meet Rum again for the first time.”


So, if Rum is the perfect spirit for all seasons, what is the perfect drink NOW? We’d like to offer up a very easy and simple seasonal drink in the Rum Buck to celebrate the Rum for All initiative.  As they have so eloquently said “Rum is no longer “next”. Rum is now!”. We will drink to that…

 

Rum Buck or New Orleans Buck      

Ingredients:

2 ozs Denizen Aged White Rum

1 oz orange juice

1 dash Angostura bitters (optional)

3 wedges of lime

ginger beer

Glass: Highball

Garnish: Lime Wedge

Instructions: Squeeze 2 lime wedges into the glass. Add ice and pour ingredients over ice and top with ginger beer. Garnish with the remaining lime wedge and a straw.

Rum For All:  Rum is no longer “next.” Rum is now!

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February 14, 2013

Rum is for Lovers – The Airmail Cocktail

 

Who says rum can’t be romantic? Cuba seems like it must have been a pretty sexy place to be during the first half of the 20th century and it was swimming in rum and rum cocktails. It’s bartenders, and a handful of American ex-pats who got to continue their craft on the island during Prohibition, invented a long list of now famous cocktails that we’ve discussed at length in previous posts. This time last year we told you all about the Flamingo in honor of Valentine’s Day.

This time around we’ve chosen a drink that calls for a good portion of sparkling wine. Champagne and it’s many similar and not-so familiar cousins are synonymous with Valentine’s Day. These days many of us on a budget opt out of the expensive stuff for a dry Prosecco or Cava. Fine. The Airmail is a cocktail that makes rum shine through the use of bubbles, so no need to break the bank for this one. Let’s call it a “baller-on-a-budget” drink. The ingredients are simple and easy to find and it is as sophisiticated as they come.

The drink, like so many classic rum cocktails, is one that seems to trace its origins back to that fateful time in Cuba. 1919 is the first known published recipe for it and it is said to have been named for the first drop of, well, mail by air. Now this, like most cocktail legends, is probably just that with little real evidence to back it up. But if we can indulge for a moment it’s nice to imagine that this may have been the first time that a wordy and sentimental hand written letter made its way from one faraway lover to the other. Cute.

The bottom line with the Airmail is that it packs a punch with the standard 1 1/2 oz pour of rum at the base being amped up with the addition of the sparkling wine that will probably come in anywhere between 11-16% alcohol by volume filling the glass.

Of course, we also love the way that Denizen Rum’s tropical fruit and barrel aged notes show up with the use of honey in this one. For the honey syrup, aka runny honey, make a little extra.  You and your date may want another round.  

                                                                                    

The Airmail

1 1/2 oz Denizen Aged White Rum

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1/2 oz honey syrup *

1 1/2-2 ozs Sparkling Wine

Directions:

Pour all ingredients, except sparkling wine, into mixing tin. Add ice and shake. Strain into a tall glass filled with ice. Top with sparkling wine. Garnish with a lime peel expressed over the glass.

*Combine 2 Tbsp. honey with 1 Tbsp. hot water and stir or shake until consistent.

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January 4, 2013

A Tale of the Toddy

The Rebirth of Rum: A Tale of the Toddy

The Rebirth of Rum series reports on the vast and intricate world of one of the most storied spirits categories in the entire world. The world of Rum spans all seasons and borders and it’s that time time of year again when we look back on the past year and forward to the year ahead. As the cold winds blow in and we contemplate, we tend to bust out the aged stuff, changing the landscape for Daiquiris, Yacht Clubs and Hemingways and making way for Old Fashioneds and Toddies on cocktail menus.

Rum has alway been a true all-purpose spirit. It’s ingrained in American history (and so many others) since the beginning of our ‘modern’ societies, and for some even longer.  Paul Revere took a dram of it to stay warm and ascertain courage on the night of his famous ride.  Cocktails and Toddies were prescribed for everyday imbibing in Colonial America, where rum distilleries were common enough to put a heavy demand for molasses being imported from the Caribbean.  See The Molasses Act for the ending of that story.  Before whiskey took over as the most popular base ingredient in the king of hot drinks, The Hot Toddy or Rum Toddy was as pedestrian in taverns, saloons, and even at home as a drink that could be made with three base ingredients like spirit, sugar, and water.

Right up until three or four generations ago, it was still common in some parts of the U.S. to find a dusty old bottle of rum tucked away in a cupboard or under the stairs of many homes in our little part of the country. Rum has since gone through something of an identity crisis and came out the other end to find its rightful place on some of the world’s finest menus during the first part of the 21st century, choosing to show off the funky underbelly that is its essence.

There was a time when The Toddy was one of six or seven drinks that you would have encountered in any well respected tavern.  Some of these Toddy recipes have lost traction over time which could altogether be due to the fact that their definition from Sling to Cocktail to Toddy might have been as slight as the addition of a little more or less (hot or cold) water or the addition / omission of bitters.  Some have altogether recovered their reputation and then some.

 

 ”Before the Cocktail, there was the Toddy-or the Sling-or the Julep-or the Sangaree. Or anything else you wanted to call a glass of beverage alcohol with a little sugar in it, a little water if needed, and maybe a scrape of nutmeg over the top or a sprig or two of mint stuck in the glass.”

-excerpted from Imbibe  by David Wondrich

 

Nowadays there are Toddies in all sorts of varieties using different sweeteners, liqueurs, spices, fruits and, much like the cocktail, it has become a generic term for any drink served hot. Hot water has long been associated with health and longevity across cultures but here it also does something magical to spirits with the addition of a little something sweet. This is wherein the beauty of The Toddy and the Old Fashioned are held. For ages, bartenders have all chimed in with their interpretations of this drink and it appears in many forms. It may seem unthinkable today but 200 years ago there was a time when adding the rind of citrus to the drink would have rendered an entirely different drink known as a “Skin”. The drink, when done properly stays true to form as spirit, sugar, and water (Hot). That’s it.  Today the differences are not so subtle and a lot of different ingredients in the form of fruit, spices, etc are all fair game in a “Toddy”.

One easy way to trick out a Toddy and stay true to form is using tea as your water component. Chai tea, for example, tends to pair nicely with aged spirits and can be incorporated by quickly steeping into your boiling water before serving. In many places, especially those influenced by English culture, black tea is a very common substitute in this format and worth trying.

We’ve mentioned one of our favorite variations on this method, The Baked Apple Toddy, featuring our own rum, this time last year in Maxim Magazine.

 

 

While they deserve a post all their own, worthy of mention this time of year are other traditional Rum winter-warmers like the Tom & Jerry and hot Punches which we’ve touched on in past posts. These drinks illustrate a clear connection between the past and present of Rum Mixology.

This post was inspired not only by the cold, but by new creative interpretations on the Toddy popping up on menus in renowned cocktail bars like Apotheke in New York City.  The bartenders there have shrugged the Toddy for a presentation more akin to a mulled beverage steeping fresh Bartlett pear, apple, and guava with sugar cane and water in a crock pot and bringing this mixture up to a boil before adding our aged white rum in their very own “Corazon de Fuego”.

Chime in and tell us what your favorite winter Rum drinks are.

 

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November 12, 2012

The Rebirth of Rum: Rum Culture lives at Rum Connection

 

“Rum Connection is dedicated to providing our readers with the latest news, exclusive articles and critical information about the tradition and culture of rum.”  

         - www.rumconnection.com

This opening phrase, excerpted from the “INFO’ tab on the Rum Connection site gets right to the heart of what the gentlemen behind this portal to all things rum wanted to share with their readers and community…the culture of rum.

Like so many other storied spirits, rum enjoys a culture and history all its own and is uniquely tied into the story of founding the new world. Rum Connection is a state of mind, you could say. It congers up images of tropical places and lazy days. Being denizens of the Florida Keys and diligent students of rum, Mike Streeter and “Bahama” Bob Leonard, the minds behind Rum Connection are uniquely qualified to speak to what rum culture is, as they have turned their passion for the juice into a lifestyle.

“To us, that meant detailed information about new and interesting rum brands, but we hoped to go way beyond that.  We wanted to approach rum as a lifestyle rather than just a drink”.

Rum’s Renaissance as a cocktail ingredient and sipping spirit alike has hit a fever pitch as small communities of aficionados in geographically separate pockets are able to connect using the virtual world. There are too may online communities dedicated to sugar cane spirits to list and we are a fan of a handful that will pop up from time to time on our little site. With annual festivals in Berlin, The UK, Miami, and all over The Caribbean and beyond, rum has cast a vast net over the globe just like its own history as beverage alcohol. There is a constant barrage of new brands coming to market and distilleries opening and closing and being bought and sold every day and Rum Connection will give you the scoop.

 

“We wanted to approach rum as a lifestyle rather than just a drink” 

                                                                                                                                                – Mike Streeter, Rum Connection Founder

 

Launched in 2007, Rum Connection has helped spread the gospel of rum by presenting a non-biased, user-friendly portal to get your own personal fill of Rum Culture. The good gents at Rum Connection have shown themselves to be gatekeepers of rum culture and truly free spirits.

“Our work publishing Rum Connection has brought us to some amazing places over the last 5 years and we’ve made some incredible friends.  We can’t wait to see where the next 5 years will take us”.

We’ll be following along. We salute you, Rum Connection.

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August 31, 2012

The Rebirth of Rum: Labor Day Rum Punch

Yet another summer has come and nearly gone, marked by the coming of this weekend’s Labor Day holiday, here in the States. As summer fades we like to get together with friends and family to celebrate the passing of the season and our dwindling time to enjoy the daylight here in the Northeast.

If you find yourself hosting your friends this Labor Day, Punch is a great way to serve a flavorful classic style cocktail without toiling over a shaker for the whole day. Punch has a long history of bringing people together to celebrate time passing and this one is a great example of the cross polonation that Punch represents. We can think of no better an occasion than a truly American holiday to celebrate this patchwork of cultures. The Dutch Republic Punch is an original creation of New Yorks’ own 1534, an acclaimed cocktail bar embracing the global exploration of the French national Jaques Cartier with their eclectic list of house cocktials, featuring an aggresive Punch program served from tea kettles in order to turn the service over to the guest and their company. The Dutch Republic Punch is  a celebration of  ”the golden age of Dutch exploration between the 16th and 18th centuries when punches invented in Asia were brought to the Caribbean.” says Justin Noel, proprietor of 1534.

Dutch Republic Punch

INGREDIENTS

12 oz Denizen Rum

6 oz Fresh Lime Juice

6 oz Fresh Grapefruit Juice

4 oz Indian Tea Syrup

Dash of Orange Bitters

Dash of Angostura Bitters

Topped with Soda

Freshly grated Cinnamon

Freshly dusted Cardamom

Lemon Slices

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix two spiced Indian tea bags and sugar in hot water, stirring until sugar is dissolved; refrigerate to let cool.  Once the tea mixture is cool, add juices, bitters, and Denizen Rum.  Stir well; refrigerate until ready to use.  About 30 minutes before serving, pour punch over large block of ice in bowl.  Top with soda and a generous grating of cinnamon and cardamom.  Add lemon slices for garnish.

 

 

“One of Sour, Two of Sweet, Three of Strong, and Four of Weak.”

 

The Denizen Labor Day Punch Recipe Contest:

Got your own Rum Punch recipe? We want to hear from you. Send us your favorite recipe for the occasion and if we select your punch, we’ll send you one of our uber comfortable Denizen Rum t-shirts.  We’ll also feature you and your rum punch recipe on our social media pages.

It’s as simple as that. Break out that old punch family recipe, your own famous party punch, or stick to the formula above to create an original rum punch recipe that will off-set the end of summer Labor Days.

Simply post your recipe in the comments section below before September 5 and we’ll get to the lab to select the winning recipe.

 

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July 13, 2012

The Rum Diaries: El Presidente Cocktail

What mixes best with white rum? Most would opine fruity mixers like tropical fruits and citrus are the first items to come to mind, and that would not be wrong to conclude. But as a new era of rums and rum connoisseurs is ushered into popular culture, so too does the way we think about rum cocktails. Rum is taking a step back in time, back to a time when even filtered white rums were spirits with body, texture, and flavor.

When Denizen’s proprietary blend of Trinidadian and Jamaican rums was formulated and crafted, it was with cocktails in mind. Specifically those legendary cocktails from the golden era of rum mixology in Cuba like the Daiquiri. It was always expected that Denizen would be recognized as rum that was freeing the flavor of long lost and forgotten drinks. As Martin Cate of the famous Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco puts it “”Denizen is used in several cocktails at Smuggler’s Cove where we’re looking for a historic flavor profile and a product that in a way mimics the smaller batch, less technologically advanced era of distillation.  To make a very long story short, a little less efficiency means more body and character.”

That body and character is what led us to (re)discover a drink that had fallen off the radar for some time. The El Presidente is what is referred to as a ‘spirit-on-spirit’ drink. This means, basically that it is comprised almost completely of spirituous liquids that are similar in their weight and texture and therefore we stir to mix and chill them as opposed to a shaken drink. This basically means that we are trying to maintain the texture and silky smooth mouth feel of the drink by keeping oxygen out when chilling it. It also means that the drink has an overall higher alcohol by volume than your typical sour-style shaken drink. Think Martinis and Manhattans for reference.

Like most noble classic cocktails the El Presidente has unclear origins and has been said to go all the way back to 1919. It’s not clear which of 2 Cuban Commander in Chiefs it may have been named for. It is said to have been offered to and refused by Calvin Coolidge during his visit to Havana in 1928, a time when the U.S. was still fighting to repeal National Prohibiton. Our Rum Diaries segments on Rum Mixology have gone to great length to talk about the vibrant cocktail scene that developed in Havana during this time with Cuban and out of work American ex-pat bartenders combining to forge a surge in creativity. The El Presidente is one of the scarce few stirred drinks held in noble esteem by bartenders from the time and can be more easily compared to a Martini than, say, a Daiquiri. This is what makes the drink special within its context. There are some dead give-aways that call it out as Cuban. Grenadine or pomegranate syrup was a calling card of Cuban bartenders and sort of unusual in this kind of drink. Then there’s the rum…

When I first became aware of this drink while scouring classic cocktail books it called for dry vermouth and the style of rum was listed ambiguously as ‘aged’. No matter what I tried, I just was displeased when I stirred it up.

To put it simply: without rum that can stand out in the final product, this drink falls flat.  Also the dry vermouth just wasn’t working.  What to do with this one? Why was it famous?

It was at this time that I was going back through the lexicon of classics to try Denizen on for size. Greg Boehm of Cocktail Kingdom was the first the point out to me that some new things had come to light about the drink. He explained to me that while doing some independant research, Cocktail Historian Emeritus David Wondrich had stumbled onto the misssing link in the El Presidente. His research led him to the oldest known recipe from 1924 calling for Vermouth de Chambéry. As in the producer Dolin. His research led him to believe that during the time of the El Presidente’s creation, Chambéry producers only exported their Blanc (aka Bianco in Italian) vermouth. When he tried it on for size, he found that it made for a much more balanced cocktail and did us all a great service.

The original El Presidente is made of equal parts of white rum and blanc vermouth, a barspoon of good quality curacao and half a barspoon (for color more than taste) of grenadine. Stirred over ice and garnished with the peel of a lemon or a cocktail cherry.

Below is the recipe that I’ve settled on with our own Noble Blend. The addition of a little orange bitters really fills in the cracks and orange peel instead of lemon accentuates the Curaçao and bitters and really ties everything together nicely.

Photo courtesy of cocktailia.com

1 1/2 oz. Denizen Aged White Rum

1 1/2 oz. Dolin Vermouth Blanc (Martini & Rossi or Cinzano Bianco are fine substitutes)

1 barspoon orange Curaçao or Grand Marnier

½ barspoon real grenadine

Instructions:

Pour all ingredients in a mixing tin and add cracked ice.

Stir ingredients and strain into a chilled glass.

Express the oil from a long cut orange peel then rub its oils on the glass’ rim and place it in the glass skin up.

The El President is BACK! Let us continue to free the flavor of the stirred white rum cocktail. Click here to hear a clip of the folks from Denizen discussing the El Presidente on Damon Boelte’s Speakeasy talk show on Heritage Radio Network.

 

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June 26, 2012

The Rum Diaries: A World of Rum

A Guide to White Rum

 

RUM: The word congers up a variety of images for many people. Associating things like Tiki masks, pirate ships, and all things Carribean is not uncommon or incorrect but it doesn’t tell the story of what’s in a bottle of rum.

Defining Rum as a category of spirit made from some form of fermented sugar cane is the easiest way to do it, of course, but what Rum really is can be a hard concept to wrap one’s head around. The first, and most confounding reason for this quagmire is that Rum is the most broadly defined of all the global ardent liquors with the only stipulation being that it is made from sugar cane and even that is not always followed to a tee.

From there, things get a bit more complicated, as it’s imaginary geographic center The Carribean, is a patchwork of cultures, with major world powers controlling difffernt territories at different points in history since Europe first made it’s way west. This cultural diversity coupled with a lack of restrictions on production methods leaves a seemingly endless number of possibilities for what becomes a bottle of rum.

To add to this complexity there is also a growing tendency to blend rums from different islands to develop even more complex rums with depth of flavor. This is the case in our own Denizen Rum and this particular blend tells its own unique story, as do most individual bottles on the market today.

White rum also known as “Silver”, “Light”, and even “Blanco” in some cases, has been a relatively meek portion of the overall category of the spirit, with aged amber, spiced and dark rums all taking a portion of the market. The Rum Diaries will examine each one of these categories and what they mean to mixing drinks.

But it is summer officially and drinks like Daiquiris, Mojitos, Caipirinhas, and Ti Punch are on the mind of rum lovers all over. And we can’t leave out the eponymous rum & coke when talking white rum.

So what to look for in a white rum when mixing? It really is a matter of taste of course and there may be some brands that work differently than others in this or that specific drink.

Simple Classic Rum drinks like the Daiquiri, Mojito, Hemingway Special Daquiri, and Flamingo can showcase the flavor profile of rums in a very different way when they are made with different brands.

Some drinks like the El Presidente and Fair and Warmer take on whole new lives when they are made with rums that have the depth and texture to stand up to their more spirit forward recipes.

There is huge breadth of styles and flavors within the sub-category of white rum spanning the gamet from more international styles of light column still rums, in the Latin American tradition, that tend towards a more clean vodka-like profile to pot still rums from English influenced islands like Jamaica turning out white rums that reek of the floral grassy notes of their base product, sugar cane.

When mixing with white rum a good place to start is by using fresh fruit flavors and keeping it on the lighten shaken drink side of things. Items like limes, coconuts, and pineapple are literally natural fits for rum as they grow up sharing the same soil as the sugar cane grass that later ends up in our bottles in some cases.

As we touched on above, to create even more deep flavors in a white rum, more modern techniques of blending, barrel-aging and charcoal filtering are often used in more globalized environment.

While the process of selecting a white rum to use in your rum drink can often be a daunting task given the wide number of brand choices available in the market today, we recommend you start off by referencing the results from the recent Ultimate Cocktail Challenge judged by world famous mixolgists and spirits professionals. You will then be well on your way to freeing the flavor of your rum drink and liberating your palate.

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June 2, 2012

World’s Best Rum Bars: Rum Club Portland

  “Situated philosophically and geographically somewhere in between The Slammer and Beaker and Flask” 

 

The phrase as it reads on the menu at Rum Club in southeast Portland is a manifesto of sorts.  Rum Club is, ostensibly, right there in-between one of Portland’s bastions of haute cuisine and cocktails, Beaker and Flask, and one of the city’s most beloved dive bars, The Slammer. The Club strives to maintain a pretense free approach to its clients and the craft, while keeping a high standard for the product that is being offered up, thereby walking the philosophical in-between as well.

The Club manages to work this into its service doctrine by serving intricately made housemade syrups and house rum blends echoing those of the Titans of Tiki like Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber.  Fresh fruit juice and premium spirits are the rule and not the exception in a serious array of rotating classics crafted by its pro staff.

photo credit: Jesse Champlin

“I’ ve always wanted Rum Club to ride the line between (Beaker & Slammer). A bar that is a bar. Cocktail? Yup. Shot and a beer? Yup. Shotski? Yup.”

                                                                                -Owner, Michael Shea

 

If you ask him outright, owner Michael Shea might even tell you that Rum Club isn’t a cocktail bar, and if its vibe is the indicator, it doesn’t feel like it. It’s a warm and inviting space with a varied and well-curated attention to its ambiance through ambient elements like music and lighting.

It’s reputation with it’s clients and the media might disagree with Shea, however, as Rum Club has often been featured in national booze industry publications like Imbibe Magazine  and was recently named the Reader’s Choice Best Cocktail Bar in Portland Monthly. As Shea puts it, “I’ ve always wanted Rum Club to ride the line between (Beaker & Slammer). A bar that is a bar. Cocktail? Yup. Shot and a beer? Yup. Shotski? Yup.”

Photo Credit: Jesse Champlin

 

This ability to sit “somewhere in between” is what has come to define the charm of Rum Club and is echoed by its ability to get the best of both worlds. There is a vibe of genuine hospitality right down to the smallest details like the menagerie of mis-matching antique glassware and hummingbird-print wallpaper. On the right night, in the glow of the lava lamp, you may just be charmed into feeling that you are in an idealized other place and time altogether.

 

As for those classic cocktails and their offspring, Shea says, “I’ve always wanted the menu to showcase what rum can do. I think that many people only think of rum as that crappy well rum and coke that they had in college, or they think of it as the corn syrupy blender drinks that are available at resorts. Because of that, many people come in the door thinking that they hate rum. I would like to try and change that. When I’m asked, what should I have, I most often recommend the Rum Club Daiquiri. Often the reaction is, “Is it blended? Isn’t that a sweet drink?” I want to try and change those perceptions that it can’t be in an “adult” cocktail. Don’t get me wrong, I love a blended drink, but rum is so much more versatile than just tiki inspired drinks”

 

Photo Credit Jesse Champlin

“… Don’t get me wrong, I love a blended drink, but rum is so much more versatile than just tiki inspired drinks”

-Owner, Michael Shea

While the name on the door mandates a dram of rum (try something new to you) at some point in your visit, the food is not to be missed while you are at The Club, either. Simple and delicious, the menu has frequent changes and staples of American cocktailing executed by a seasoned staff from some of Portland’s best restaurants.

So next time you find yourself in the Pacific Northwest and thirsty for a great bar-going experience, stop by and say hello to our friends at Rum Club. Denizen and yours truly have been lucky enough to make an appearance behind the bar at The Club, and if you ask nicely, Shea might just whip you up something with our beloved juice.

See here for more info, press, and menus at Rum Club PDX 

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May 4, 2012

The Rum Diaries – Rums Best Mixes

Rum & Coke or Cuba Libre

Rum has an esteemed place in the world of cocktails. Drinks like the Daquiri, Mai Tai, and Mojito remain as ubiquitous as ever in cocktail bars, outdoor patios, clubs, and dives around the world. The popularity of these drinks is dwarfed, however, by  the sheer volume of something as easy to replicate as the rum and coke.

From college apartments to the most highfalutin nightlife destinations in the world, the rum and coke is replicated over and over in practically every corner of the planet. Like it or not, it remains one of the most basic litmus tests for a rum, even for those of us who look for white rums with body, texture, flavor and aroma.

A cocktail that loosely alines itself with the world’s earliest definition from 1806 of spirit, sweet, and bitter, the rum and coke stays true to the roots of the most basic elements of drinks making, while being nearly impossible to mess up.

The name Coca Cola itself provides the link to the role of common Amargo Aromaticos or Aromatic Bitters, one of the basics of cocktails 101. Like the world’s most popular bitters, Angostura, Coca Cola was invented as an elixir during the 19th century.

¡Por Cuba Libre! or “For a Free Cuba” is the quote that gives this drink its creation myth. The phrase is said to have been a toast of US GI’s in the newly aligned Cuba and also a battle cry of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.  Like many cocktail histories, this one is cloudy and susceptible to myths proffered up by brands that leveraged it to sell their hooch. At any rate, it’s interesting that Coke was there and more than happy to be the majority ingredient in this world famous drink.

Coca Cola rose to fame around 1900 and became the world’s best selling beverage of it’s kind by 1920. As history would tell it, at this same time, Coca Cola was finding its way into the markets of newly created governments in places like Cuba where America’s sway had been felt. Our tiny little neighbor south of Florida would later prove that it’s early contributions to the history of rum mixology were of great importance.

This proliferation of Coke in countries like Cuba happened to coincide with the fact that rum found it’s long lost place as one of America’s great heritage spirits during WWII back in 1942. American distillers were mandated to switch production of industrial alcohol to fuel for the bombers in the theatre of war. As a result, Caribbean rum became hugely popular as an available substitute. Also the return of Amercian troops to the Caribbean stemming from a partnership between the US and UK solidified rum’s fame. Coke soon used its adverstising clout to align the brand with patriotism and one of the great American consumer love affairs began.

 

 

The drink was first popularized in the southeastern states where Coke is still headquartered today in Atlanta, GA and moved northwest as an easy mixer to mask the more undesirable spirits.

Fast forward and today rum and coke remains as omnipresent as ever, hanging around as the vehicle for rums from the light styles made popular after the war as the American pallet shifted to more dry and “smooth” spirits culminating in vodka taking over as the top selling spirit by the 1970′s. Today, flavorful rums with character like Denizen are making a comeback and create a whole new experience by freeing the flavor of a timeless classic. The Cuba Libre.

Denizen Cuba Libre

Pour 2 ounces of Denizen Aged White Rum into a highball glass

Fill the glass with ice cubes

Fill with Coke to about 1 inch below the glass rim

Sqeeze in one wedge of lime and rub the oils from the back side around the rim

Garnish with a second wedge of lime on the rim of the glass

Enjoy

*While the use of lime in cocktail books and print from the time varies from simple garnish to full squeeze, we like the oils and juice of a wedge of lime in our Rum & Coke and also recommend trying this one with the naturally sweetened version of Coke produced south of the border if you can get your hands on it.

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Marshall Altier at 7:19 pm  (0) Comments  

March 25, 2012

The Rum Diaries: Rum’s Best Mixes – Dissecting the Daiquiri

Spring weather has arrived early this year and it’s high time to begin to celebrate some island inspired drinks from throughout the ages incorporating juices and other fresh ingredients.

From it’s controversial and humble origins in a tiny village in Cuba, one of the world’s most famous yet misunderstood drinks is the Daiquiri. Far from a drink that should be relegated to a blended mix of swill rum and pre-packaged artificially flavored mix, the Daiquiri most closely illustrates the idea of using ingredients from the very same place where the spirit is being made. Applying the idea of terroir to spirits and even more so to cocktails is a stretch, but if it existed, this is it..

Have rum? it’s probable that, if you’re in Cuba, for instance, rum, limes and sugar are not far away.

While British Royal Navy sailors were probably drinking something like this mixture far before what some like to sell as the creation story of the Daiquiri, it’s still useful to use the Caribbean as the origin of this mixture.  It’s likely that islanders were using these ingredients along with things like coconut milk as long as rum had been produced on their local land masses, for some islands as early as the beginning of the 17th century.

It should go without saying that it’s worth your time to get a couple of limes, some sugar, and a good bottle of rum and shake up your own Daiquiri. There is nary as refreshing a drink as a well made Daiquiri and yet it’s such a simple mix of four elements; strong, sour, sweet, weak.

Let’s get mixing: Remember high school biology and learning about the Punnet Square? The 4-chambered diagram can be a useful tool for thinking about mixing drinks.

Think about the Daiquiri in this way; you have 4 basic components, as above, strong, sour, sweet, and weak that are X’s and Y’s consisting of different weights and densities. XX being the base component of this “Sour”, in this case, Denizen Rum.

 

 

Then we have XY in the form of sweet. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Granulated sugar, the  rason d’etre for Rum being born is the classic way for the Daiquiri but feel free to experiment with other sweeteners (as in the Honeysuckle below).

Our other XY is the ever important balancer of the sweet, fresh lime juice, just as it would have been freshly squeezed from limes growing on trees next to those earliest sugar cane fields that yielded the world’s first rums. Adjust this to your own level of tart to sweet by mixing up a bit and tasting as you go before and after to get a sense of your palette. Limes and rum go together like peanut butter and jelly and there are few reasons to omit lime juice for other citrus though grapefruit can also be a nice addition or substitution in the right mix.

Our last XX = water in the form of ice being shaken to mix, chill, and slightly dilute the beverage alcohol that is hopefully the healthy base of your drink. This is a much more important component than is commonly thought and under or over shaking with the wrong amount of ice can throw a drink out of balance. Fill your shaker at least 2/3-3/4 full of ice AFTER pouring the liquid ingredients.

So now we have all of our disparate items together in the vessel and it’s time to shake well. The result is a cold, delicious, and perfectly uniform mixture; the litmus test of balance when done well.

Daiquiri  The Classic

2 oz Denizen Rum

¾ oz fresh lime juice

¾ oz simple syrup 1:1 or 1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Pour all ingredients into a mixing tin. (if using granulated sugar, include this first and use the lime juice to dissolve the sugar a bit by swirling and then adding the rum)

Add ice

Shake well

Strain (double strain with a tea strainer, if desired) into a chilled cocktail glass

Garnish with a lime wheel

Remember you may like your Daiquiri dryer than your guests and understanding your likes against the mean is an important part of drink making.

One of the most basic forms of cocktail creation is simple substitution. Switch out the sugar for honey and adjust the proportions to taste and voila, you’ve got yourself a Honeysuckle. A delicious spring drink to experiment with using local honeys. Try things like orange blossom or other flower honeys for nice variations.

Honeysuckle   simple substitution

2 oz Denizen Rum

¾ oz fresh lime juice

½ – ¾ oz honey syrup* (depending on honey)

Pour all ingredients in to a mixing tin

Add ice

Shake

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with a wedge of lime

*honey syrup is made by diluting the pure honey with a bit of hot water (4 or 5 parts honey to water usually will suffice, depending on the viscosity). Stir this mixture until it is consistent.

If you want to try it on for size with a liqueur like crème de cacao or maraschino instead, you’ve got yourself a Mullato Daquiri. This is a slightly more advanced drink with it’s rare liqueurs and precise measurements. Worth the pain should you like…

Mulata Daquiri   advanced substituion

1.5 oz Denizen Rum

¾ oz lime

½ oz crème de cacao

1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur

1 teaspoon simple syrup 1:1

In light of spring, why not try the above  basic Daquiri formula and throwing in some cool spring herbs like basil from your garden? Lavender for a nice floral touch? Go down to the farmers market and see what kind of different cool honeys your local bee farmer has?

Lastly, it’s still fun to drink blender drinks and it shows us the concept of dilution, as the amount of ingredients may need to change in light of the addition of water, in this case by blending into a frozen mix. This also can be a chance to get away with a slightly more booze forward drink, if adding juices that are naturally sweet like pineapple.

This one is from our friend Martin Cate and Smuggler’s Cove San Francisco, CA

Caribeño  fundamental substitution 

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1/4 oz rich simple syrup

4 oz coconut water

2 oz Denizen Rum

Pulse blend 2-3 seconds with 1 cup crushed ice until frothy and chilled, but not frozen or slushy.  Pour into double old fashioned glass. and garnish with lime wedge.

You’ve now got the perfect skeleton to try new variations of the Daquiri.  Celebrate spring and the arrival of rums with the flavor worth rediscovering in these simple lost classics.

Posted by:
Marshall Altier at 4:07 pm  (0) Comments