3 course cocktails: The Darkest of Rums…

So my post the other day should have set everything all out for you. The posts in this series will focus on supplying you 3 detailed cocktail recipes, which may or may not be alcoholic.

The basic idea is to help you understand the cocktail more (especially its flavours). Also it’s about having fun! See what ‘menus’ you can come up with at home…

3 wonderful rum cocktails… picture sourced from http://www.trivalleycentral.com

Here’s a mini-intro:

Starter:

Starter cocktails are simple and refreshing. These cocktails will not be anything you wouldn’t have heard of before, but they will be perfect for starting your ‘meal’ off. They should be refreshing and where possible: Crisp. Think limes, fizzy mixers and overall a balanced drink and you’re half way there…

Main Course:

This is the tricky course. The cocktails you’ll find here will be a little stronger than you’re probably used to, and this is not a bad thing. Think an Old fashioned, think Mad Men, think classic and classy and you’re on the right track. This course is all about alcohol with depth and will include cocktails where you can better appreciate the alcohol…

Dessert:

Something sweet, something to end the night on a high… This section will cover some of the better sweet cocktails. Are you one of those people that just have to have a dessert when you go out for a meal? Then this is the section for you…

This post is all about Dark Rum (Goslings is the optional rum of choice although any branded dark rum will do)

First a little bit about dark rum:

As some of you may know, Gosling’s is widely considered the national rum of Bermuda. In my opinion, and it is an educated one, this is often not as clear cut as you would think, in part due to the amount of rum brands hailing from the Caribbean, not to mention the amount coming from Barbados itself. Arguably the most famous dark (black) rum from Barbados is Goslings Black Seal.

Now the thing to remember when making this menu is the rum. It really has to be a black/dark rum (or at the very least a top quality golden rum). This is not because I’m a rum snob (I am but that’s neither here nor there) but in fact because these cocktails are all about Dark Rum. To get the best flavours out of them you need to use dark rum.

Ok, now I’ve got the rules and regulations out of the way let’s get onto the fun stuff: The cocktails…

Starter

Gosling’s Dark N’ Stormy

Classic Recipe:

120-140ml Gosling’s Stormy Ginger Ale

50ml Gosling’s Black Seal Rum

Slice of lime to garnish (so the consumer can add it if needed)

See it made here:

http://www.goslingsrum.com/details.asp?RecipeID=192

So this is probably one of my most favoured cocktails. It’s simple, balanced and genuinely fantastic. I’m not a fan of too much spice and I was so happy when I found that this drink is just within my threshold.

The Dark N’ Stormy with its trademark Black Rum float… Picture sourced from http://www.mutineermagazine.com

As some of you may know, Gosling’s is widely considered the national rum of Bermuda. In my opinion, and it is an educated one, this is often not as clear cut as you would think…

It makes for a perfect start to a 3 course cocktail menu because not only is it simple to make, it’s also designed to be crisp and refreshing, a perfect start to any ‘meal’.

The problem with this cocktail though, is that you will be hard pressed to find anywhere in the UK that serves it… My local Chiquito’s restaurant serves it (and dark n stormy’s) but not many other places do. In this case, you can improvise by simply using any other dark rum. I prefer Kraken Spiced myself, but Captain Morgan’s works equally as well.

The Garnish of a lime wedge is for aesthetic pleasure, but also enables the consumer to add it if they prefer it.

Cocktails like this are the ones that creep up on you. If you’re not careful you’ll start falling over and texting ex’s before you know it. But enjoyed responsibly they can be the best cocktails you’ll ever have… Give it a go, and let me know what rum you prefer in your Dark N’ Stormy!

Main Course

Rum cobbler

Recipe:

1 teaspoon caster sugar

75ml soda water

50ml Dark rum

Garnish:

Maraschino Cherry

Orange Wheel

Lemon Wheel

The original recipe for the one above can be found here:

http://mixthatdrink.com/rum-cobbler/

Add the Soda water & caster sugar to a chilled glass. Mix until the sugar dissolves and then fill the glass 2/3rds with crushed ice. Then add the dark rum and garnish. When garnishing the recipe calls for wheels and a cherry, but if you’re able to skewer the rind of a lemon, orange and the cherry then try that for some added class…

This classic cocktail is a shorter more refined cocktail. Perfect for tasting the full flavours of dark rum…

This cocktail is all about the flavour of the rum used. In keeping with the menu theme of Dark Rum, this cocktail uses the more ‘flavour-deep’ rums. Any dark rum can be used in this drink; my advice is to just use your favourite dark rum here.

Whether you prefer Gosling’s, Kraken Spiced, Morgan’s Black, or even Havana club 7yo, it’s all about the rum’s flavour and its depth.

A perfect course for sampling the flavours dark/black rum can offer. This is one of my favourite ‘strong’ cocktails and I admit I have to be in the mood for it, but it is genuinely a great drink. Do not be surprised to see it on bar menus across the U.K. & U.S.A. over the next few months…

Dessert

Sweet Meringue

Recipe:

2 teaspoons Lime Juice

2 teaspoons Falernum

25ml coconut water

50ml Dark Rum

1 teaspoon Apricot Brandy

50ml Single Cream

Garnish:

1 x Slice Mango

1 x Pineapple Leaf

1 x Mint Sprig

Add all the ingredients to a shaker and shake well (until the shaker ices up). Strain it into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with the mango slice, mint sprig and pineapple leaf, using the pineapple leaf as the ‘spoon’ for the other two garnishes.

This cocktail is a very sweet but tasty, Pina Colada like cocktail. Picture sourced from http://www.bbc.co.uk

This cocktail is all about the sweet flavours from the other ingredients bringing out certain qualities in the dark rum. In some restaurants they add Falernum to dark n’ stormy cocktails to help sweeten them slightly…

A perfect end to the Dark Rum 3 course meal, this cocktail will be ever so slightly sickly, and you won’t want more than one, but it is silky smooth and has a naturally layered depth thanks to the rum used. This drink should have a golden hue to it, and you would not be wrong to think of it as a kind of golden Pina Colada (albeit without the pineapple).

Why not give it a go and let me know if you find a better way of making it? (Equally let me know if you like it just the way it is).

Did you know? Falernum is a slightly alcoholic (typically 11%) sugar syrup with various flavours infused into it. It is originally from Barbados (the brand you can buy nowadays is from Bridgetown, Barbados). So this goes perfect with Gosling’s Black Seal Rum…

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Caipirinha Please… No, Wait. A Caipiroska

Continuing my theme of the day: how interchangeable certain alcohols are in certain cocktails; I feel compelled to discuss, briefly at least, the family of Caipirinha cocktails:

Across the Caribbean and now most of the world the preferred distillate of sugar cane is Rum. White, golden, dark, spiced even the newer infused rums, it doesn’t matter what type of rum, what matters is that it is RUM.

The Caipirinha, packs a punch, but it’s full of South American flavour.

This may be the case across almost all the world, but down in South America, Brazil especially, this is far from the case. Cachaca is the distillate of choice. Cachaca is a sugar distillate not too dissimilar to rum, but it arguably lacks the same smoothness of some rum products. Regardless of its texture, it has been used in one of the 20^th century’s most popular cocktails. Served across the beaches of South America, be it Brazil, Argentina and even Uruguay, Caipirinha’s are a source of great joy for locals and tourists alike.

The standard recipe for a Caipirinha takes half a lime (cut into wedges) and muddles it with brown sugar, then after topping up with crushed ice, 2 measures (around 50ml) of Cachaca is added. A quick stir later and you’re sipping on a very strong, but refreshingly crisp cocktail.

This cocktail is traditionally served with crushed ice in a rocks glass.

Classic (American/UK) Caipirinha Recipe

50ml Cachaca

½ lime (cut into wedges)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

Top up ice.

Top tip: very gently muddle the lime with the sugar until the sugar has all but dissolved. Then add the cachaca and give it a swizzle stir. Serve with 2 straws.

This recipe is so easy to tweak to your tastes its perfect for chilled evenings watching the football with your pals, or catching up with your girlfriends after a busy day shopping. Either way this versatile drink can be tweaked several ways:

Short Cachaca Mojito

45ml Cachaca

½ lime (cut into wedges)

2 teaspoons sugar syrup

2-5 mint leaves

Top up crushed ice.

Splash of soda water

This version of the Caipirinha is simply a short version of a Mojito using cachaca instead of rum. Using the same method for the standard Caipirinha, only when muddling the lime and sugar you muddle the mint leaves too.

The splash of soda water adds the familiar mojito fizz, without diluting the drink.

Margarita Caipirinha

40ml cachaca

10ml triple sec

¼ orange (cut into chunks)

2 teaspoons sugar syrup

Top up crushed ice.

This cocktail uses the margarita as inspiration, mixing triple sec, cachaca and lime to create the feel of a margarita but served in a traditional South American way.

Try using all your favourite fruits in Caipirinha’s you try at home, this one is made with Passion fruit. Just add a little bit of your fruit to the muddling phase…

The interchangeable alcohol idea:

A famous north American/European cocktail known as the Caipiroska is a simple twist on the standard Caipirinha cocktail. The Caipiroska uses high quality vodka, lime and sugar to the same ends as a Caipirinha. The idea is that this is a refreshing drink using an alcohol that North Americans and Europeans are used to (vodka).

Classic Caipiroska Recipe

50ml high grade vodka (i.e. Green Mark)

½ lime (cut into wedges)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

Top Tip: If you have it available, use agave nectar. This sugar syrup like product is fantastically sweet and works brilliantly with this cocktail (as well as mojito’s but that’s a discussion for a future post).

If you find this drink a little too strong for your tastes, then try having it in a taller Collins glass and top up with soda water…

One last note about the Caipiroska; the citrus noted above is lime, but because vodka is such a neutral spirit, there is no reason why you cannot use the same quantities of any citrus fruit; some good examples and quantities are as follows:

Orange – ¼ orange (cut into chunks)

Lemon – ½ small lemon (cut into wedges/chunks)

Grapefruit – ¼ small Grapefruit (cut into chunks)

…

After note: now it has come to my attention (through a source) that the above recipe is purely an Americanised version of the cocktail. I have it on good authority (see the comment below) that the original recipe from Brazil actually uses lemons. Although they are actually green lemons! It’s quite easy to see that from an american point of view if it’s green it must be a lime… Well this is not true. Brazilians use what are simply green lemons. So if you want a Brazilian Caipirinha (and you don’t mind swapping out the green colour for yellow) replace the lime chunks with lemon. For an extra special twist, shave a large full circumference slice of lemon peel and fit it around the glass (after muddling the chunks & sugar), then add the ice and Cachaca … Whichever recipe you choose I’m sure you’ll enjoy the drink all the same. sure lemons will change the flavour slightly, but it’ll still be a refreshing summer drink!

Drink up I’ve just ordered you another one!

Thanks to http://thingsthatfizz.wordpress.com/ for the advice below!