Infinite MonkeysIn anticipation of the hot summer months ahead, I've been studying cool-weather cocktails. Rum drinks mostly. I'm sipping a passion-fruit mojito right now. (Tasty, but good grief! Do you have any idea how much passion fruit costs?) The great Bernard DeVoto wrote of rum, "In both cheapness and effectiveness it proved the best liquor for Indian traders to debauch their customers with. People without taste buds can enjoy it now, though the head that follows it is enormous, and such sentimentalists as the seadogs of small sailing craft can believe they do. But mainly it is drunk as all sweet liquors are, in a regressive fantasy, a sad hope of regaining childhood's joy at the soda fountain. No believer could drink it straight or gentiled at the fastidious and hopeful hour."
DeVoto was right about a great deal, but he was sadly misinfomed about rum.
In the past, my tastes have run almost exclusively toward gin drinks, according to the DeVoto Doctrine, in conjunction with with my own rule about seasonal drinks. (The last two links are blog*spot entries, so you may have to scroll down.) When the mercury breaks 100, nothing beats a gin-and-tonic-with-lots-of-lime-and-a-generous-dose-of-Campari.
Well, almost nothing.
This year, I've discovered the wonders of rum. Actually, I should say I've expanded my horizons to discover the wonders of aged rum. A few years ago, I went on a major Mai Tai kick. Contrary to popular belief, a well-made Mai Tai is a truly top-shelf cocktail. By "well-made," I mean made the Trader Vic way, with really good dark rum, and orgeat syrup, etc. No pineapple juice! No farging grenadine!
Anyway, it turns out that there is a lot of really good rum out there. Sipping rum, as it were. But perfectly mixable, too. (Unlike single-malt scotch, say; it is, after all, rum.) A couple of months ago, the New York Times published a recipe for something called a Tamarind Rum Punch. It requires an ounce and a half of Ron Zacapa Centenario rum ($35 a bottle) and two and a half ounces of tamarind nectar ($0.65 a can). God help me, it's a fine drink. I found the recipe for the passion-fruit mojito there as well. Liberal media? Perhaps. But I say the Times is good for something after all.
I've worked through the Zacapa, as well as a the 12-year-old Montecristo from Honduras, Bacardi 8-year, and Appleton's Extra. All good stuff.
So good, in fact, that I've decided to declare this coming season the Summer of Rum. In the coming weeks, I'll be posting recipes for some exceptional rum cocktails. A few recipes will call for some obscure ingredients (Velvet Falernum, anyone?). Some... will not. All of them will be first-rate cocktails. I'll also post tasting notes on various rums. Occasionally, I will tie these posts to politics.
More often than not, however, I will post on politics after two or three of the cocktails I'll be posting recipes for. So, it's a win-win scenario.
Posted by Ben at May 24, 2004 07:59 PM | TrackBack