coffeesp00ns was kind enough to shift his opportunity to host off on me. I will be away in Florida with my family the week of the 21st, and don't want to commit to anything where I'd actually really need to follow through as I don't know what my internet or availability will be like down there.
I have chosen my drink of choice: rum. Delicious, lovely, dark and sweet, I personally prefer the Sailor Jerry's brand. Sailor is both cheaper than Captain Morgan, and more alcoholic.
There are actually two kinds of rum, white rum and dark rum. Your white rums are your Bacardis, really bad rail rum, and Malibu. I do not recommend anyone select Malibu for their rum unless you're mixing it and/or have other liquors available as well. While Malibu is very sweet and thusly easy to drink, it's like - fake rum. And once I had to drink a red cup full of it during a drinking game and that kind of put me off the whole experience. However, white rums may cause less severe hangovers! I think I read that somewhere.
Dark rums are delicious. The aforementioned Sailor's is my go-to as an inexpensive rum that will get you pleasantly drunk. Captain Morgan's has more of a vanilla flavor. Kraken is more heavily spiced, but very good. I would recommend Kraken mixed with a pale soda (like Sprite or maybe ginger ale) OR one of my favorite newly-discovered drinks, a Dark & Stormy. This is made by combining an alcoholic ginger beer (I prefer Crabby's) with a generous shot or so of rum - Kraken being my preference here.
In my experience dark rum drinks are usually served with a lime garnish. I recommend that.
I promise to imbibe enough that I may occasionally misspell something.
On a side note, please never, ever drink Burnett's Sweet Tea Vodka, guys. It's awful.
Shout-outs: humanodon mk, b_b, insomniasexx, flagamuffin, theadvancedapes, humanodon, cW, wasoxygen, zebra2, ijustcantanymore, ecib, Meriadoc, lil, cliffelam, sounds_sound, cgod, kleinbl00, elizabeth, pseydtonne, istara, steve, OftenBen, coffeesp00ns, BrainBurner, codingvagrant, kevinf311, ButterflyEffect, forwardslash, backslash, givello, briandmyers, thenewgreen, shitizen, beezneez, uh_oh, fuffle, @fuffle's wife@
- There are actually two kinds of rum, white rum and dark rum. Your white rums are your Bacardis, really bad rail rum, and Malibu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum#Grades
Rum is an alcoholic beverage made from sugar cane. Things can be added to it.
- White or light rum is unaged and filtered. It can be good, it can be bad. Cachaca is essentially white rum made from cane juice; light rum is rum made from molasses and filtered.
- Gold rum is aged and filtered. It can be good, it can be bad.
- Dark rum is aged and filtered. It's aged longer in more heavily charred barrels than gold rum.
- Flavored rum is rum with sorority girl shit added to mask the shite quality of the rum. Often lots of sorority girl shit. Lookin' at you, Malibu, you delicious, dirty whore.
- Spiced rum is rum with spices added to mask the shite quality of the rum. Often lots of spices. These are your Captain Morgain, your Sailor Jerry's.
Bears repeating: Sailor Jerry's is not dark rum. It's SPICED rum. And, much like flavored coffee allows vendors to use robusta beans (which smell like burning tires) instead of arabica beans, spicing allows pretty much any cane juice to be turned into an alcoholic beverage.
The traditional dark rum is Myers'. It is pretty good. Whalers' and Goslings' are also pretty good. However, if you're expecting Captain Morgan, you're going to be disappointed.
It's an unfortunate side effect of geopolitics that whisky is made in regions where privileged white people can drink it while rum is made in regions where downtrodden brown people can drink it. Rum is every bit as sensitive to input, distillation and aging as scotch or bourbon, but it rarely gets the chance. My father, when he was in Brazil, was fond of a cachaca that charged more for the bottle deposit than it did for the alcohol within.
Personally, I'm rather fond of Hana Bay white, particularly when mixed with guava juice. It's difficult to find outside of Hawaii, however. It tastes more like gin than it does like Bacardi. And I didn't fully understand "rum" until I had Havana Club - not the bacardi knock off, the actual Cuban shit that's embargoed in the US. I fully believe the only reason Bacardi has the name it does is paleolithic cocktail culture - up until the peak of the swingin' 50s, Bacardi was Cuban rum, not Puerto Rican rum, and believe you me, there's a difference.
FUN FACT: The Mai Tai, invented in California in the '40s, had an evil doppelganger one could find in Hawaii consisting of a float of dark rum, a float of spiced rum, a float of anejo rum, a float of silver rum and a float of 151 in a highball glass with a long straw to sample among. I've served them from time to time just because I can.
The "I Dare You" Drink: The Molotov Cocktail
A friend of mine (who tends toward Gentleman Jack) saw my bar (back when it was impressive - six cabinets, probably 150 bottles) and asked for a cocktail. I asked him what he liked. He said "A Molotov Cocktail" (he used to have lyrics from Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" in his .sig). I asked him what was in one. He said
"You're the bartender, you tell me."
So in the interests of revolution, adventure and the caribbean, I invented one.
- 1 oz Vodka (for the Russian)
- 1 oz Gran Marnier (for the French)
- 1 squirt lemon juice
Shake with ice.
- 1 martini glass
Rub rim with lemon juice. Dip in superfine sugar.
- 1/2 oz Bacardi 151 (for the Caribbean)
pour gran marnier and vodka in the martini glass. Float 1/4" 151 on top.
Light.
Hand to victim. Instruct them not to blow it out until it's partially caramelized the sugar. Then warn them that the edge is likely to be hot.
Fucking delicious, but must be drunk with care.
'sall good. Next time you go to Canada, get a bottle of Havana Club. Or get someone to bring you one.
The rum that's generally available in the continental United States isn't particularly good. We don't have a palate for it here. We probably will - for some reason, I tend to get into things a few years ahead of the crowd, which swoops in and fucks it up but also occasionally brings boons from overseas - but in the meantime, the fact that "rum" to most new drinkers is a choice between Captain Morgan flavored swill, Sailor Jerry's flavored swill or Malibu flavored swill pretty much puts culture at Bartles & Jaymes / Zima levels of enjoyment.
I guess they got sick of eleventy seven different flavors of vodka.
Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry and Malibu are to rum what Boons Farm is to wine. Bacardi falls into a category of booze that doesn't have to be good because it's advertized in magazines (If a booze has a glossy add it should mostly be avoided).
I'd think Mount Gay is decent as far as rum goes. It's not a booze genera that I've explored much but I find a Mount Gay is drinkable on the rocks with a splash of tonic and lime, at my work all you have to say is "I think I'll climb the mountain" and that's what you'll get.
If you are a fan of Dark and Stormy's, might I suggest something darker and stormier? I present cW's interpretation, The Thunderhead.
Also, don't forget to add the lime juice to your dark and stormies people. It would be horrible without it.
Also, also there are many lesser known and really special rums from all over the world that are worth attempting to get your hands on for this tasting. I know I will.
Good call on Rum, this will be fun.
My wife's favorite cocktail:
1.5 oz -Dark Rum
.5 oz Cointreu
.5 oz Simple Syrup
.75 oz Lemon Juice
5 muddled RaspberriesI know that cW uses a juicer. It's potent stuff, use it sparingly.
Without a centrifugal juicer, the labor involved is outrageous. Crushing the root in a handpress has been done, but I really don't recommend. Second best option might be to grate with a superfine grater (microplane, probably), then strain through cheesecloth (though the juicer I use leaves in some of the pulp, and I don't really know if it would be better with or without). Still not a walk in the park, but as thenewgreen points out, you really don't need much. I recommend no more than 1 Tbsp. per drink, but you might want to start with even less.
He was kind enough to write me and give me his email address etc. He and I will stay in touch and he may return to the site. He has his reasons but mostly he said it was because of you.
I'm kidding of course, but he wrote a very thoughtful message explaining his thinking. I hope he returns, I wouldn't be surprised if he does.
He has twins, right? How totally time consuming is that? I'd take a leave from hubski too, to get my life in order -- but you would cry - so I can't.
Sadly, hubski has led me to drink. Instead of thinking on the thoughtful web, I end up drinking.
Kidding of course -- what will I do with my three unopened bottles of La Fin du Monde?
Drinking leads to thinking, it's just a middle-man really. I would advise drinking them at the most appropriate moments, that part is up to you.
Sounds like the voice of experience.
Luckily you are wiser now.
btw, interesting hearing about your poetry last night at the drinking party. There's two words that often go together: poetry and drink (Dylan Thomas comes to mind). The one you mentioned, please send it by pm or email if you want to share/discuss.
It is in your messages, and I am only as wise as my wallet is waifish. ;)
I've been on a powerfully building writing/poetry/submission/DO DO DO kick for the last two weeks or more and it's really starting to show in my Hubski conversations, haha. But there are significantly worse things to be obsessed with.
I am not a good drunk writer, however. Maybe I miss the sweet spot in the middle when my handwriting's still legible, I don't know. I'm a great drunk Tweeter. Notable moments include: "If I were apple I would name all my operating systems after bread" and "I just want someone I want delete my tweets with the next morning."
Someday we will have La Fin Du Monde in Toronto but don't save them, drink them and enjoy them!
I don't much care for rum, but I love Appleton Estate, especially the 8 year-old. I don't have much money for it these days but it's good!
The only thing I know about rum, I learned when I was a teenager, and it's this : when you finish a bottle of Barcardi 151, you can hold a lighter to the mouth of the open bottle and it will make a cool whistling sound when the vapours burn.
Heya. I would suggest adding a time zone to the post. The later the better. I love rum and I want to attend this one, dammit.
I might potentially pool resources with a friend or two -- ain't no way I can afford it otherwise -- and try out kb's Molotov.