For this month’s Mixology Monday, Rick over at Kaiser Penguin has chosen the theme Limit One as a nod to those classic tiki drinks that came with such a warning label attached. Of course, this had less to do with the patron’s concern for the customer’s well-being and more to do with marketing and generating what today we would call “buzz”. I believe the first drink to bear this warning was Don the Beachcomber’s Zombie, but many followed in this vein, normally mixing enormous quantities of different rums together to make drinks that would leave you hung-over if you happened to glance in their direction.

I didn’t want to do a tiki drink, because I reckon that about 80% of this month’s entries will be tiki, so I’m going to talk about the Papa Doble, even though I actually already covered it way back in June last year. If you read that post you’ll notice that I highlight a discrepancy with that recipe, because it contains the same amount of rum as a regular Daiquiri, yet the drink supposedly owes part of its name to being a double.

This Drinkboy forum thread has a convincing explanation in the form of a different recipe to the one I originally posted, this one from a book called Papa Hemingway - A Personal Memoir by A.E. Hotchner. Actually, I recommend you read the Amazon extract of that book to get a little vignette both of Hemingway and also of Havana back in the good old days.

Back to the recipe, this new one comes in at a sturdy 4 ounces (well, 3 3/4, but I rounded up) of rum, which is about twice as much as a normal Daiquiri takes, and also twice as much lime juice, so it now passes the “double” test. As well as much more grapefruit juice, another variation is that this drink is blended, whereas I mixed up the first version in a shaker.

So how does it measure up? Well, it’s not that different from just making two of my first recipe, but somehow it’s missing something. I’m going to notch it up to the fact that it’s still winter, and you really need to be in the searing heat to fully enjoy this ice-cold wonder…

Recipe:

4 oz. White Rum
2 oz. Lime juice
1 oz. Grapefruit juice
1/4 oz. Maraschino liqueur

Blend with 3/4 cup of crushed ice and serve in a large goblet.

Notes:

Very cold, sour and bitter. A killer combination in the summer, but maybe overkill in March.

Rating:

- Make the smaller version, at least that way you can have twice as many…

Head on over to Kaiser Penguin to see the rest of this Monday’s entries.

I’m not really into sipping spirits. There are exceptions, like a brandy or eau-de-vie after a meal, but as a general rule I don’t do straight booze. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the nuances of a fine spirit, of course, but I prefer having a vehicle to help it on its way.

Usually an Old Fashioned will do the trick for bourbon as well as other dark spirits such as rum. However, while browsing Beachbum Berry’s latest book Sippin’ Safari, the Rum, Gum & Lime struck me as having similar qualities and being more adapted to rum because of the lime juice it contains. Having tried it, I can happily report I wasn’t wrong. This simple recipe is great for appreciating a fine rum without having to drink it straight.

The Bum also recommends Ron Pampero Aniversario as being a good rum for this drink, if you’re undecided as to which rum to go with. I picked up a bottle since it was on my shopping list anyway, and have to second this recommendation. It really is a smooth and rich rum, and is a pleasure to taste. The original was made with a rum called Infierno, from Cuba, but this hasn’t been available for decades.

I’ll be using the Rum, Gum & Lime in my rum tastings from now on, no doubt about it.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. Rum
1/2 oz. Lime juice
1 tsp. Simple Syrup
1 oz. Seltzer

Stir everything in an old-fashioned glass with ice, and garnish with lime and orange peels.

Notes:

You may want to adjust the seltzer and simple syrup amounts to your taste and the rum you’re using. If the rum isn’t very intense, it can end up tasting watered-down with a full ounce of seltzer.

Rating:

- A cool tool for rating rum (I should work for The Sun)

I’m on a bit of a Beachbum Berry run here, since acquiring a batch of his books. You’ll have to forgive me, and rest assured I will stop before I get to plagiarism.

Today I bring the Fog Cutter, another Tiki standard from Victor ‘Trader Vic‘ Bergeron. In his Grog Log, the Bum quotes Trader Vic as saying: “Fog Cutter, hell. After two of these you won’t even see the stuff,” and there’s no doubt that it’s a potent mix. Two ounces of rum in a cocktail can already be considered a generous serving. If on top of that you add another ounce and a half of hooch, you get something pretty explosive. And I haven’t counted the float yet.

There were a few reasons for trying this one out. Firstly, it’s a classic in its realm. Also I had all the ingredients, which is pretty rare for most of the Bum’s recipes. Well, with one exception, but I’ll get to that. This includes my latest toy, Orgeat syrup.

The rum mentioned in the book is light Puerto Rican rum, which is a euphemism for Bacardi Carta Blanca. I always substitute a decent rum instead of that particular one, and it’s usually Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. The spicy notes add character to any drink, and it’s probably the most historically correct anyway. There is no note in the book of when the drink was created, but the Bacardi that all these Tiki legends used was made in Cuba in the same distillery and using the same recipe as the current Havana Club. Even if the drink wasn’t created prior to the Cuba embargo, I reckon Trader Vic knew exactly what he was aiming for when he used Bacardi, and this was probably it.

My missing ingredient was sweet sherry, since I usually keep some of that around in the winter. The summer in Spain calls for the dry Fino or Manzanilla varieties of Sherry. I had a reasonable substitute, though, in Málaga Virgen, a sweet fortified wine made from Pedro Ximenez grapes. These grapes are used at least in part in most sweet sherries, and although the wine is missing some of the character of being fortified with sherry brandy, it’s pretty similar.

It wasn’t much of a big deal anyway, because I used sherry brandy in the drink, whereas most people would probably use something from France. So all the elements ended up there, even if the components were a little different.

By the way, have you noticed the photo in this post? I figured that it would be a good idea to start doing that with this new design, you know, to spruce things up. If by sprucing up I mean highlighting my failures, of course.

First of all, you may have noticed I’m not exactly Rick from Kaiser Penguin when it comes to taking pictures of drinks. I hope to improve, but until then you’re stuck with my experiments. Second of all, you see that brown sludge at the bottom of the glass? That’s the float. Yeah, I know, let’s pretend it didn’t happen. And third of all, even though I tried to follow Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s instructions to the letter, my orange twist sucks.

But whatever, I’ll give you the recipe and you can try and do better.

Recipe:

2 oz. Lemon juice
1 oz. Orange juice
1/2 oz. Orgeat Syrup
1 oz. light Rum
1 oz. Brandy
1/2 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. sweet Sherry

Shake everything — except sherry — with ice cubes. Pour into tall tiki mug and add more ice cubes to fill. Float sherry on top of drink.

Notes:

The first time I made the Fog Cutter I skipped the float altogether, and only included it the second time for completeness and the photograph. That didn’t work out too well, and I ended up mixing the float with the rest of the drink, which wasn’t too great.

I’m left without knowing what it’s like made exactly right, but I’ll probably be skipping the float the next times I make it. The cocktail is strong enough without it anyway, and the tartness just right.

Rating:

- A good drink, but too strong to enter my regular rotation.

The Planter’s Punch is one of that class of drinks with no fixed recipe. If you look in ten different places, you’ll likely find ten different formulations. Many books and databases even include several variations, giving each one a number.

I decided to look into the history of the Planter’s Punch to see if I could find a definitive or original recipe, but things don’t seem to be that clear. According to Wikipedia, the first known reference to a Planter’s Punch is in the August 8, 1908 edition of the New York Times, where a generic recipe is given as this little poem:

This recipe I give to thee,
Dear brother in the heat.
Take two of sour (lime let it be)
To one and a half of sweet,
Of Old Jamaica pour three strong,
And add four parts of weak.
Then mix and drink. I do no wrong —
I know whereof I speak.

Now I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like an invitation to improvise. The recipe gives four ingredients — lime, Jamaican rum, something sweet and something weak. Lime and rum are fixed, so we’re left with two ingredients to play with. Thankfully the measures were easy to translate into modern units, with each part being half-an-ounce in my interpretation.

For Sweet I decided early on to use my newly acquired Orgeat syrup (there’s a Mai Tai post coming soon when I can source the quality ingredients needed). I tried another version with a new homemade grenadine I’ve been toying with, but the Orgeat was somehow more satisfying. That may just be me favouring something new, though.

Weak is obviously some sort of fruit juice. Orange and pineapple are the usual suspects here, so I wanted a little change from that, but without going all out and using mango or passion fruit either. I settled on grapefruit juice as being out-of-the-ordinary enough without being cliché tropical.

For the rum, I cheated slightly because I found that the full given amount of dark Jamaican rum overpowered the drink. So I reduced the Jamaican rum to one ounce, and threw in some Havana Club Añejo 3 años for it’s distinctive nose and taste. I suppose that reading my new Beachbum Berry book arsenal is having an effect on me.

As to the name, it’s an allusion to the numbers given to variations I mention in the beginning of the post, joined with a rather geeky pop-culture reference.

Recipe:

1 oz. Dark Jamaican Rum
1/2 oz. Light Rum
3/4 oz. Sirop d’Orgeat
1 oz. Lime juice
2 oz. Grapefruit juice

Shake with plenty of cracked ice until you can’t feel the tips of your fingers, and serve in a large tall glass.

Notes:

The Orgeat is pretty pronounced, so you may want to reduce it to 1/2 oz. to make it more subtle. Either way, it’s a nice drink that’s refreshing and not too sweet.

I’ll also be trying this with a slightly less pungent Jamaican rum, and using the full 1 1/2 oz. to see how that works out.

Rating:

- Refreshing and different.

I first saw this drink mentioned on Beachbum Berry’s blog over a month ago, and had been intrigued by it until a few days ago, when I finally got my hands on some allspice and made the requisite syrup. I have to say it is very good. So good, in fact, that it made me ponder the adequacy of my rating system.

You see, a four-star drink has to be like a friend who is always there for you no matter what. That means, apart from tasting great, it has to be easy to make and have ingredients I am likely to have around the house. The rating system is very clear — rare ingredients or difficult methods get you two stars.

The ingredient list is where the Navy Grog falters. It uses something called Grog Mix, which is an allspice syrup you pretty much have to make yourself. The directions are simple, according to the Bum:

Grind enough whole dried allspice berries to make 6 level tablespoons. Place the ground allspice in a saucepan with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. Bring it all to a boil, then cover and simmer for two minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and — keeping it covered — let steep for two to three hours, then strain into a bottle and refrigerate.

No matter how simple-to-make an ingredient is, it remains an added complexity. This is especially true for me because I’m so lazy when it comes to making these things, hell, I don’t even have any simple syrup usually.

The resulting drink, however, is really something. The allspice is very prominent and unlike anything I’d ever tasted before in a glass. It works wonders with the robust rums in the mix, and makes the entire experience very satisfying. I recommend you make yourself one right away, or as soon as you’ve mixed up some Grog Mix.

Recipe:

1 oz. dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz. Demerara Rum
3/4 oz. Lime juice
1/2 oz. Grapefruit juice
3/4 oz. Grog Mix

Shake everything together briskly with plenty of crushed ice and pour into a double old-fashioned glass.

Notes:

Demerara rum is impossible to find here in Spain, so I ended up just substituting it for a completely different rum, to see what the effect was. I used Cruzan gold rum, which is new round these parts, and the result was quite decent.

Rating:

- If I make Grog Mix on a regular basis, it’s no longer a difficult-to-find ingredient, right? Right??

The About page mentions alcohol reviews, but sharp readers will notice there are none up yet. Well, this is about to change!

Dave’s Drinks brings you Smooth Booze Reviews — one post, many opinions. And none more than a line long. The idea is just to let you know my completely baseless opinions on alcohol I have tried, maybe with a view on deciding what to buy when in a quandary.

There are three things you should take into account before heeding my advice. Firstly, I live in Spain. This means that the same brands I buy here may not be the same in your part of the world. Secondly, I live in Spain. This means that prices may vary wildly compared to wherever you live and therefore the value for money aspect, which is important in rating a drink, may vary. Finally, I live in Spain. This greatly affects the selection of booze available compared to other countries, both in missing brands and in additional brands (notably rum from latin countries).

And of course, these are my personal preferences. You’ll notice that I like full-flavoured rums like those from Jamaica or Guyana (Demerara).

Keep in mind that this post is a work-in-progress, so it might pop up to the top of your newsreader occasionally. Changes will be clearly marked for your convenience. Take a look at the rating system explained to determine what the stars mean.

So, on with the show.

Captain Morgan’s Black Label Jamaica Rum (Jamaica) Very full-flavoured, reasonably priced.

Havana Club Añejo 3 Años (Cuba) Essential for most cuban drinks.

Myers’s Original Dark Rum (Jamaica) As intense as Morgan’s Black Label, but a touch too sweet.

Appleton Estate V/X (Jamaica) Smooth and subtle, yet definitely Jamaican.

Appleton Special Jamaica Rum (Jamaica) In your face.

Wood’s Navy Rum (Guyana) Intense flavour and strong (67%).

Pampero Especial (Venezuela) Distinctive flavour, smoother than most.

Santa Teresa Gran Reserva (Venezuela) Pretty nice.

Bacardi 8 (Puerto Rico) Very nice, but expensive.

Cacique (Venezuela) One of the better latin-american style rums.

Havana Club Añejo 7 Años (Cuba) Deep and rich Cuban flavour. Expensive, though.

Bacardi Reserva (Puerto Rico) A bit rough around the edges.

Brugal (Dominican Republic) Ok, but generic.

Barceló (Dominican Republic) Ok, but generic.

Captain Morgan’s Spiced Gold (Puerto Rico) Not bad, but gimmicky. Limited uses.

Mount Gay Eclipse (Barbados) Nothing special about it, a standard Gold rum.

Rhum Agricole St James Royal Ambre (Martinique) Not bad flavour, but a bit rough.

Bacardi Carta Blanca (Puerto Rico) Nearly all alternatives are better.

Malibu Coconut Rum (Barbados) Artificial.

This post is actually about two different drinks that just happen to share the same name and ingredients. Confused? Read on.

I was actually looking for some information on tiki legend Don the Beachcomber when I came across this cocktail. There are a few recipes out there with the same name, so I used the one I found most frequently. Luckily, it’s also the recipe that used ingredients I had on-hand.

The reason I mention two drinks is that most sources simply call for rum, which has many different incarnations, so I tried mixing up a couple of these with two very different rums to compare the outcome.

The first rum I used was Captain Morgan’s Black Label Jamaica Rum, my default dark rum. I won’t lie to you, it wasn’t great. The balance was off and the rum overpowered everything except the maraschino liqueur, which is almost impossible to tame. The sugar rim worked quite well in improving the drink somewhat, but I still wasn’t impressed.

Not one to accept defeat so readily, I figured I’d try the other rum in my arsenal at the moment, the Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. This light rum is a staple in many cuban drinks, and since the Beachcomber is similar in nature and ingredients, I figured it would work better. I wasn’t mistaken, this new drink was lighter and more refreshing than the previous effort, with the rum and lime working together and the maraschino giving it that touch of bitterness. Altogether a much better drink.

If you’re looking for something similar to a Papa Doble but in a cocktail glass, you could do worse.

Recipe:

1.5 oz. light Rum
0.5 oz. Lime juice
0.5 oz. Cointreau
1/4 tsp. Maraschino Liqueur

Shake everything together with plenty of ice, and serve in a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass.

Notes:

Don’t even think about omitting the sugar rim. Without it, the cocktail is simply too tart, and in a cocktail glass with no ice it’s not going to remain cold enough for this to be a pleasant experience.

Rating:

- A decent, if unadventurous, summer concoction.

Not your standard rum’n'coke, a properly made Cuba Libre has fresh ingredients, fine booze and balance. Indeed, it is a refreshing drink to be sipped and enjoyed, not just another alcohol-delivery mechanism for teenagers.

As with any good drink, nobody is sure how the name came about. There is no denying that Cuba Libre! was a popular expression both during and after Fidel Castro’s communist revolution. Some say that the name is derived from its two main ingredients, Cuba referring to the rum and Libre (or Free) referring to the American Coca-Cola.

Either way, the ingredient everyone always forgets, and that elevates a proper Cuba Libre beyond being just another common drink, is Lime juice. Just a little, in combination with respecting the proportions of rum-to-Coke, goes a long way. Once you’ve tried it properly made, you won’t go back.

Also, you should use a gold or dark rum for this. The flavour of a light rum won’t really make it through the Coke. Cuban rum is always more authentic, but one of my rum taste-tests is always the Cuba-Libre so I’ll try anything. For a good dark Cuban rum, try Havana Club 7-year-old, or Matusalén. The original was probably made with Bacardi, and even though Bacardi is no longer cuban, their 8-year-old is also nice.

Finally, use classic Coke. All the other varieties (especially Diet Coke) taste strange and not what you’re after at all.

This has been the final installment in cuban classics but for the next few days I’ll probably keep writing about summer standards. Stay tuned!

Recipe:

2 oz. gold or dark Rum
1/2 oz. Lime juice
6 oz. Coca-Cola

Rub the rim of a tall glass with the peel of a lime wedge. Fill it with ice, and pour in the rum followed by the Coke. Squeeze in the juice from a couple of lime wedges, and drop one into the glass.

Notes:

There isn’t really much to say, except that I recommend you try many different rums. But maybe not all of them on the same day… Also, you can vary the proportions to your liking, but try not to make the drink too strong or too weak, it will lose character.

Some recipes for the Cuba Libre include Gin, although I don’t know where that idea came from. You can try it if you like, about half as much gin as rum, it’s not unpleasant.

Rating:

- Well made, it’s always a great drink.

According to cuban legend, El Presidente was a recipe of Major-General Mario García Menocal, who during his tenure as president of Cuba (1913 - 1921) once entered La Floridita and requested that this drink be prepared for him. Other sources say the drink was invented by a cuban bartender and named in honour of the serving president of the time. Either way, the consensus is on a 1910’s/1920’s origin in Havana.

Researching this drink was interesting. Everywhere I looked, I was unable to find an agreed-upon recipe. I checked both english- and spanish-language sources, and I noticed one detail. Most recipes in english use dry vermouth as an ingredient, whereas recipes in spanish unanimously require sweet vermouth. I suspect that the source of confusion is in the details. many of the recipes that call for sweet vermouth specify that it must be white. This implies the italian bianco variety, which is white and sweet. Maybe this detail became distorted as the recipe traveled, and since dry vermouth is white in colour, the recipe changed.

I’m listing the recipe as using sweet vermouth because, well, I don’t have any dry vermouth at home, and having tried the sweet version, I doubt that using dry vermouth would work any better.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. white cuban Rum
1 oz. bianco italian Vermouth
1/2 oz. orange Curaçao
a few drops of Grenadine

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Notes:

Given all the different versions of this drink available, there are many variations. I used Cointreau due to lack of Curaçao, and I think this might have made the drink worse. Possibly the sweeter notes of the Curaçao work better in the drink. Still, I’m not willing to experiment too much with this drink, I don’t think there would be enough improvement to justify it.

Rating:

- Not my thing.

As well as being a famous bar in Havana, as mentioned in yesterday’s Papa Doble post, El Floridita gives its name to not one, but two cocktails.

One is also known as the Floridita Daiquiri, and is something in between the original Daiquiri and the Papa Doble. The other recipe is more interesting, and so I’ll focus on that one today.

Interestingly, I have been unable to find any information about this drink’s history, and I’m also too lazy to make something up on a Sunday afternoon, so I think I’ll just veg out in front of the TV and try to forget about having to work tomorrow. But I’ll have a couple of these.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. white cuban Rum
1/2 oz. Lime juice
1/2 oz. Italian Vermouth
1/4 oz. white Creme de Cacao
1/8 oz. Grenadine

Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker and serve in a cocktail glass.

Notes:

I first tried this cocktail shortly after starting to explore the world of cocktails, a few years ago. I was struck by how well the chocolate touch combines with the refreshing qualities of the traditional cuban rum+lime combination. Looking around the net, it seems that everyone else who mentions the drink has the same impression. If you haven’t tried it, you really should.

Rating:

- A pleasantly unusual drink.