Mixology Monday - RUM!!!
Arggghhhhh, Matey! I guess'd ye be searchin' for a cuppa grog . . . or maybe ye tongue wants to lash at a Zombie or a Mai Tai . . . ye look like scurvy dogs from down here in ye old Scofflaw's Den.
But AYE! It be yet another Mixology Monday hosted by the esteemed Trader Tiki. The poison this Cap'n of the High Seas has chosen is that nectar of Aphrodite, that elixir that keeps a Scofflaw's tongue whetted . . . RUM.
Alright, so a full post in pirate talk would be a bit much and I'm about ready to kick my own ass if I keep this up much longer.
I love rum. There isn't any other way to say it as clearly as that. I love it. This has also been a pretty hectic weekend for me and unfortunately I'm afraid it is going to have to infringe on my MxMo day. But I don't want to make a bunch of excuse, lest you make me walk the plank.
When I started thinking of what to write, I decided to first take stock of what rum I had in this Scofflaw's Bar.
From left to right I have:
Ron Zacapa 15yr
Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole
Dogfish Head Honey Brown Rum
El Dorado 12 yr Demerara Rum
Mt. Gay Rum
Cruzan Black Strap Rum
The Scarlet Ibis Rum
Dogfish Head Wit Spiced Rum
Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc
After I took stock, I felt completely overwhelmed. I guess I should take a perverted sense of pride in this feeling. Most folks probably has a bottle of rum . . . maybe two. I also wasn't sure of what to do for a cocktail for you good folks. Should I go tried and true tiki? I love me some tiki (as I have said over and over), but think a lot of folks will do traditional tiki drinks. One I idea I had, and will do eventually, is a tasting of Rum Collins - try each of my rums with a squeeze of lime and some tonic water. Sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you ask me.
So I turned to the books. Again, tons of rum drinks and none that really grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the feeling of rushing around and I was trying to force something . . . not allowing the spirits (heh!) of those by-gone Pirates flow through me and give me inspiration when I needed. I needed the spirit of William Dampier to infuse my soul with a yearning to find something new.
So when all else fails, pick something at random!!!
I chose the Tahiti Club from Gary Regan's Bartender's Bible. It goes something like this:
Tahiti Club
1 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz pineapple juice
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz lemon juice
1 tsp maraschino liqueur
Shake, strain over fresh ice cubes in a rocks glass.
As you can see from the picture, I used the Depaz and the El Dorado. Just a quick note to say that I really love the Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole. It smells of sweet grass, fresh sugarcane and has almost a whiskey/bourbon undertone as well. It is also one of the few (maybe the only one?) rums to receive the Appellation d'Origine Controlee from the French Government.
The cocktail was good - but very tart! For my tastes, I think the tartness hid some of the nuances of the Depaz and the El Dorado. I think a dash of rich simple syrup would really bring the inherent flavors of the rums from behind the juices. The maraschino liqueur lent an interesting funkiness to the nose of the drink, but worked very well with the fruit juice flavors.
Hmmm . . . now that my whistle was whetted, I wanted to do a little concoctioneering. Actually, I was going to use this space for a drink I came up with while over at Sean's Friday night, but he beat me to it and posted it here. That scurvy bastard . . . :-) So check out his post for an extra-special-hey-look-there-is-an-extra-chest-of-booty-type rum drink from your's truly.
So yeah, concoctioneering. I had some coconut milk left over from some coconut sticky rice I made a few days ago. I decided to try and use that in a drink. This isn't the pre-sweetned Coco Lopez stuff, rather it is what you find in the Asian section of your market. For help using it, I turned to some notes I had written one afternoon playing with some coconut water. The water is the clear juice that is inside the coconut right when you open one up. One of the recipes I had tinkered with was the following:
2 oz rum
2 oz coconut water
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz grapefruit juice
.25 oz raspberry syrup
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe
I really liked this mix. It was boozy, sweet and had flavors and aromas coming out of the waa-zoo. For me, definitely a keeper. But at some point I'll need to name it . . . . But this was the launching pad to use the coconut milk. What I came up with was this:
2 oz rum
1.5 oz coconut milk
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz Aperol --> I ran out of grapefruit juice and wanted a substitute for the bitterness in grapefruit.
.25 oz raspberry syrup
.25 oz grenadine
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe
Now to be honest, the drink came out looking kind of funky. It was a creamy dark pink color. Not unappetizing by any stretch, but just not a color that I normally associate with drinks. It kind of looked like the pinkish hue you find on seashells. Hmmm . . .
The taste was also something I wasn't expecting. It was much more tart than anticipated. It was creamy, sweet and tart. The rum gave it a good backbone (I used the Mt. Gay) and the Aperol tamed the sweetness of the syrups. (If anyone out there tries their hand an making this, please, please let me know what you think . . . any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!)
Alright, I think it's time for me to bring my MxMo post to an end. Again, I want to thank Mr. Blair Reynold's, aka Trader Tiki for allowing us on deck for this rum soaked episode of Mixology Monday!
Cheers!
But AYE! It be yet another Mixology Monday hosted by the esteemed Trader Tiki. The poison this Cap'n of the High Seas has chosen is that nectar of Aphrodite, that elixir that keeps a Scofflaw's tongue whetted . . . RUM.
Alright, so a full post in pirate talk would be a bit much and I'm about ready to kick my own ass if I keep this up much longer.
I love rum. There isn't any other way to say it as clearly as that. I love it. This has also been a pretty hectic weekend for me and unfortunately I'm afraid it is going to have to infringe on my MxMo day. But I don't want to make a bunch of excuse, lest you make me walk the plank.
When I started thinking of what to write, I decided to first take stock of what rum I had in this Scofflaw's Bar.
From left to right I have:
Ron Zacapa 15yr
Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole
Dogfish Head Honey Brown Rum
El Dorado 12 yr Demerara Rum
Mt. Gay Rum
Cruzan Black Strap Rum
The Scarlet Ibis Rum
Dogfish Head Wit Spiced Rum
Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc
After I took stock, I felt completely overwhelmed. I guess I should take a perverted sense of pride in this feeling. Most folks probably has a bottle of rum . . . maybe two. I also wasn't sure of what to do for a cocktail for you good folks. Should I go tried and true tiki? I love me some tiki (as I have said over and over), but think a lot of folks will do traditional tiki drinks. One I idea I had, and will do eventually, is a tasting of Rum Collins - try each of my rums with a squeeze of lime and some tonic water. Sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you ask me.
So I turned to the books. Again, tons of rum drinks and none that really grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the feeling of rushing around and I was trying to force something . . . not allowing the spirits (heh!) of those by-gone Pirates flow through me and give me inspiration when I needed. I needed the spirit of William Dampier to infuse my soul with a yearning to find something new.
So when all else fails, pick something at random!!!
I chose the Tahiti Club from Gary Regan's Bartender's Bible. It goes something like this:
Tahiti Club
1 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz pineapple juice
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz lemon juice
1 tsp maraschino liqueur
Shake, strain over fresh ice cubes in a rocks glass.
As you can see from the picture, I used the Depaz and the El Dorado. Just a quick note to say that I really love the Depaz Blue Cane Rhum Agricole. It smells of sweet grass, fresh sugarcane and has almost a whiskey/bourbon undertone as well. It is also one of the few (maybe the only one?) rums to receive the Appellation d'Origine Controlee from the French Government.
The cocktail was good - but very tart! For my tastes, I think the tartness hid some of the nuances of the Depaz and the El Dorado. I think a dash of rich simple syrup would really bring the inherent flavors of the rums from behind the juices. The maraschino liqueur lent an interesting funkiness to the nose of the drink, but worked very well with the fruit juice flavors.
Hmmm . . . now that my whistle was whetted, I wanted to do a little concoctioneering. Actually, I was going to use this space for a drink I came up with while over at Sean's Friday night, but he beat me to it and posted it here. That scurvy bastard . . . :-) So check out his post for an extra-special-hey-look-there-is-an-extra-chest-of-booty-type rum drink from your's truly.
So yeah, concoctioneering. I had some coconut milk left over from some coconut sticky rice I made a few days ago. I decided to try and use that in a drink. This isn't the pre-sweetned Coco Lopez stuff, rather it is what you find in the Asian section of your market. For help using it, I turned to some notes I had written one afternoon playing with some coconut water. The water is the clear juice that is inside the coconut right when you open one up. One of the recipes I had tinkered with was the following:
2 oz rum
2 oz coconut water
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz grapefruit juice
.25 oz raspberry syrup
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe
I really liked this mix. It was boozy, sweet and had flavors and aromas coming out of the waa-zoo. For me, definitely a keeper. But at some point I'll need to name it . . . . But this was the launching pad to use the coconut milk. What I came up with was this:
2 oz rum
1.5 oz coconut milk
.5 oz lime juice
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz Aperol --> I ran out of grapefruit juice and wanted a substitute for the bitterness in grapefruit.
.25 oz raspberry syrup
.25 oz grenadine
1 dash maraschino
1 dash absinthe
Now to be honest, the drink came out looking kind of funky. It was a creamy dark pink color. Not unappetizing by any stretch, but just not a color that I normally associate with drinks. It kind of looked like the pinkish hue you find on seashells. Hmmm . . .
The taste was also something I wasn't expecting. It was much more tart than anticipated. It was creamy, sweet and tart. The rum gave it a good backbone (I used the Mt. Gay) and the Aperol tamed the sweetness of the syrups. (If anyone out there tries their hand an making this, please, please let me know what you think . . . any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!)
Alright, I think it's time for me to bring my MxMo post to an end. Again, I want to thank Mr. Blair Reynold's, aka Trader Tiki for allowing us on deck for this rum soaked episode of Mixology Monday!
Cheers!