Category Archives: Rum

MxMo: Rum

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Mixology Monday logoOne recent afternoon, Mrs. Bitters and I were in our new favorite wine and spirits shop, Eno Fine Wine and Spirits on Westminster Street. While Jen shopped for that evening’s vino, I studied the spirits shelves. One thing that caught my eye was Thomas Tew Rum, distilled very near by, in Newport, RI. The distillers are also, in fact, the makers of the microbrewed Newport Storm beer.

The Mrs. and I are semi-committed locavores. When we can buy local, we do, but when we can’t, we don’t sweat it. But having just moved here, we’re sampling as much of the local produce as we can, from shellfish to meats to veggies to, yes, rum. We’re not just blindly supporting local producers, we’re just avidly curious about what’s available here.

From what I’ve read, there aren’t many U.S. distilleries producing rum right now. When you find one in your back yard, at the same time the next MxMo post is all about rum… why the hell not?

So of course we bought the Thomas Tew, fool!

Tiki, Flickr

photo by Jennifer Hess

Thomas Tew has a good story. Newport was once a major rum distiller, and the Thomas Tew cats are trying to hew closely to the traditions of the past–distilling in a pot still, naming their product for a famous pirate, that kind of thing.

So, how’s the taste? Wellllll, it needs improvement. According to the markings on my bottle, I’ve got a sample of the third barrel that Thomas Tew has produced. When I bought the rum, I asked at guy at Eno, “Have you had this? What did you think?” He said he thought the flavors were good, but the rum was a bit thin. I think that’s a valid assessment. Sipping it neat, I found a simple, tasty dark rum. I didn’t find anything “unpleasant,” as some tasters have, but I didn’t find much complexity in the rum, either. I don’t know if it’s worth going out of your way to procure a bottle, but if the distillers tweak and improve their recipes, I think they can produce a damn fine rum.

For mixing, I wound up adapting the Kona cocktail from Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink. The copy I have entreats me to refrain from posting his recipe without his permission. I don’t have his permission, or that of his estate, but it doesn’t matter much because I didn’t hew to his formula that closely anyway. His recipe calls for Puerto Rican rum, lemon and lime juices, and maraschino.

I started with the Thomas Tew and the other ingredients, shook ‘em up, and tasted the results. Not quite what I wanted. I wound up adding a touch of Gosling’s Black Seal, and that was just the right thing to do.

I kinda putzed around with this recipe, so I’m not sure of my final proportions, but let’s say this:

  • 1-1/2 oz. Thomas Tew rum
  • 1/2 oz. lime juice
  • 1/2 oz. lemon juice
  • 3/4 oz. maraschino (Luxardo, in my case)
  • 1/4 oz. Gosling’s Black Seal

Technique: Shake, strain, enjoy.

Bottom’s Up!

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BaroqueWell, I apparently paid way too much for it, having embroiled myself in a bidding war on eBay and being too stubborn to back out, but I finally have a copy of Ted Saucier’s saucy 1951 cocktail book, Bottom’s Up! For those of you who don’t know the book, it’s a hefty thing, at a pound and a half, 270 pages, and a trim size of 10.25 by 7 inches. (Yes, I’ve worked in publishing, why do you ask?)

I mention the book’s (ahem) ample nature to point out that it’s a serious volume, with a lot of recipes and a bunch of really good ones, to boot. One thing I love most, though, is the index. Arranged, in part, by main ingredient, it’s very handy. Want a gin drink? Find the Gin subheading and eat your heart out. It is, unfortunately, not cross-referenced, so if a recipe has, say, gin and rum, but rum is the main ingredient, you won’t find it under Gin.

“Whazzawha? Recipe with gin and rum?” you sez? Well, yes. And it’s a good drink. Well balanced, with the rum and gin complementing each other rather than fighting. Saucier terms this drink the Baroque, but given the political season in the USA, I’m calling this, rather obviously, the Baroque Obama, although it’s the same recipe as appears in Saucier (although I’m converting his 1 part lime, 2 parts rum, etc. into ounces).

Baroque Obama

Courtesy, The Baroque Restaurant, New York City

  • 1 part [3/4 oz.] fresh lime juice
  • 1/2 t. sugar
  • 2 parts [1-1/2 oz.] Jamaican rum
  • 1 part [3/4 oz.] gin
  • 1 dash maraschino

Technique: Shake lime juice and sugar well. Add rum and gin [and ice]. Shake well and serve in iced glass. [As you can see from the picture, I served ours up, in a cocktail glass.] Float maraschino. [No garnish.]

I’ve learned very little about Ted Saucier. It appears he was once the publicist for the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan, and he lived from 1896 to 1970, but beyond that, I’ve learned nothing.

Except that I shouldn’t get excited and overbid on a cocktail book.

OH, I almost forgot! There’s another reason Saucier’s book is so well-loved. I’ll share that tomorrow.

How about a nice rum punch?

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For last weekend’s blow-out, I mixed up a loose variation of Padma Lakshmi’s Sweet Lime-Ginger Rum Punch. I know you want to mock me for this, but let me remind you that Padma is hot. See? Hot.

I started the day before the party by taking a couple of plastic containers and filling them with a blend of water and lime juice. I lidded them up and stashed them in the freezer. I then juiced three dozen limes and set the juice aside before cooking up several cups of simple syrup, spiced with grated ginger and cracked cardamom pods. Once the syrup cooled, I double-strained it to remove the solids and then poured the syrup into the lime juice. I refrigerated that overnight.

The day of the party, things were simple. Once our guests began to arrive, I set up the punch bowl with the large ice chunks, poured all of the limey syrup into the bowl, and added three liters of amber rum.

And then people started falling down. Yatta!

MxMo 10: Festival!

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MxMo FestiveIt’s Mixology Monday time again, this month hosted by Brenda at The Spirit World. Brenda chose the theme festive drinks for this iteration. Sounds great to me! Let’s get festive!

Homemade eggnogI chose a drink that I expect a few others will do this time as well: eggnog. And that’s okay, because it seems that just about everybody has a personal favorite recipe for eggnog, so I expect a lot of variation in ingredients and techniques.

And that’s okay, too, because I have a confession. I’m a nogn00b. Oh, I’ve had eggnog before, if you think that stuff you get at the grocery is eggnog. But I can’t recall ever having homemade nog, and this was my first attempt at making it from scratch. I’ll have fun reading what others have done and, I hope, picking up some tips on making a better nog.

(As an aside, there is a great New York State dairy, Ronnybrook Farm, that apparently makes a superb bottled eggnog. Although I’d love to try it at some point, I didn’t want to use their product for this MxMo entry. Where’s the challenge in that?)

So, on to the nog…
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MxMo: Exotics

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MxMo ExoticThe theme of October’s Mixology Monday is exotic drinks, a category of beverages in which I am quite the raw novice. Exotic beverages always seem to require a lot of equally exotic ingredients that I don’t normally keep on hand: passion fruit, orgeat, rums older than Dakota Fanning–you get the idea.

This class of drinks intimidates me, but it also intrigues me greatly, so I wanted to start moving in its direction. After all, these drinks are some of the best liquid fun you can experience, if they’re done right, so they’re worth the investment of time and capital.

I’ve paid close attention this summer to Rick’s tiki experiments at Kaiser Penguin. A few months ago, he posted a recipe for a Noa Noa cocktail, a mix of rum, lime, brown sugar, and mint. Sounded yummy to me, so the Noa Noa was my first choice.

Noa NoaThe recipe Rick posted (which I won’t actually reproduce here, since I used his recipe almost verbatim) called for demerara rum. I thought I had a convenient source for that, but I was wrong. In its place, I used another African rum, Starr, a product of the island of Mauritius.

Starr’s flavor profile bears notes of citrus, cardamom, and a touch of vanilla, making it a lovely rum for sipping on its own. But it also mixes nicely, and my wife and I both loved the Noa Noa. Thanks, Rick!

My second exotic was a slight variation on the El Floridita No. 1. So slight in fact that if were to alter its numbering in any way, I’d have to go with a cliché and call it El Floridita No. 1.1.

El FloriditaThe pink tinge comes from the use of hibiscus syrup in place of simple syrup. My wife had made the hibiscus syrup for an unrelated food-writing commission, so since we had that on hand, I thought it would make a nice substitution.

El Floridita 1.1

Adapted from Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology

  • 2 oz. light rum
  • ¼ oz. lime juice
  • ½ oz. hibiscus syrup
  • maraschino liqueur to taste

Technique: Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Tiki Talky

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tiki mask

For the tiki-crazed among you, American Heritage has just published an excerpt from Wayne Kramer’s book, And a Bottle of Rum, which I keep bloody-well meaning to read. The excerpt focuses on Tiki culture and the histories of Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic. They’ve paired the excerpt with a James Teitelbaum review of ten tiki bars. Makes me wanna open the rum.