Rumbullion. Kyl Devyl. Screech. It’s the fire water dear to me and mine: Rum, Glorious Rum.

I keep reading that Rum is making a comeback; rum is getting respectable. Heck, the (embarrassing) marketing for 10 cane rum purports to be its redemption. Poppycock. The Kill-Devil will never be redeemed, for it hasn’t the need for it. Redemption! Preposterous.

Rum isn’t on the way back. It never left. The faithless left it, but Rum was always there in the oak casks, waiting faithfully. So instead of welcoming back rum to the liquorati, instead I say: “Welcome back to rum.“

This Month sees a new year and new logo for Mixology Monday. We also have a new host. I have been privileged to know him and call him my closest of friends for nigh on a decade now: Blair “Trader Tiki” Reynolds who holds the stick behind Reynoles Galley. Wish the old feller a happy birthday while you’re there, it was yesterday.

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On to the Rum! I have previously lightly jabbered about the beginnings of Rum in the Caribbean and the growth of the grog-based rum, gum, and lime lines of cocktail development. This time, I will take the other path. While grog was the drink of the British Navy, there were other sailors who dwelt in the waters who didn’t need to pack down for months at sea. Yes, I speak of the currently popular Pirates. Their drink of choice was Bumbo (also Bumboo, Bumpo). They flavored their rum with cane syrup, nutmeg, allspice and any other local plentiful island spice. With easy access to a better balanced diet than their ocean-crossing targets, there was no need to add lime.

Bumbo was not only a pirate drink; it became very popular in the new colonies. Founding father George Washington himself used gallons of the stuff to buy off votes for his Virginia House of Burgesses campaigns (a contemporary popular ploy). Note the side illustration from a one-shilling London 1738 leaflet of “A letter from Captain Flip to Major Bumbo.” I have a feeling James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo was also familiar with the stuff.

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Spring in Portland means fresh Rhubarb. I’ve been meaning to make a rhubarb syrup — the languid tartness of rhubarb is a perfect counterpoint flavor to exploit. So to 750ml of Cockspur Barbados rum (Barbados is the home of rum), I added Demerara sugar, allspice and nutmeg. I candidly think the roots of both falernum and pimento dram grow in the soil of Bumbo. I let mine sit for a week (and increased the spices accordingly for the short infusion time). With a more restrained spice, you can (and should) let your bumbo rest for months.Using this lovely spiced spirit, I thought I’d see how it fared with a classic, Jerry Thomas style straight Cocktail treatment. As it so happens, it fares quite well. Liquor, red vermouth, bitters, stirred. The slow sour of the rhubarb and the bitter of the Punt e Mes contrast with the spice and spirit. The Orange oil adds to the nose and brings cohesiveness to the overall character of the drink.

Rhubarb Bumbo Cocktail
1 oz Punt e Mes
2 oz Rhubarb Bumbo
2 dashes Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

Stir all with fresh cracked ice and strain into rounded small cocktail glass. Express oil from orange rind. I add mine to the drink for drama but it has already done its mixological job.

Sometimes moving has its benefits. Discovering a three-year-old jar of brandied blackberries in time for this month’s Mixology Monday may not be wholly offset carting my entire household from one end of Portland to another, but it certainly sweetened the deal. 2005’s harvest was a particularly brambly year. Rich and woody, the jeweled mixture was just the perfect ingredient for Anna’s theme ingredient of fruit Liqueurs.

I strained the blackberries first through a metal sieve and then through cheesecloth to produce a smooth and gorgeous base. I added house-made vanilla syrup and added some additional calvados to finish a bright, flavorful blackberry brandy that I fear will not last long. Luckily, I have a few more jars put up for future use.

On recommendation from Trader Tiki, I used as a base the Roffignac from Stanley Clisby Arthur’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix em. The Roffignac paralells the Sazerac as a symbolic New Orleans cocktail, though it has not seen the contemporary success of Peychaud’s credited tipple.

Here I use the Brambleberry Brandy in place of the raspberry sirop in the original recipe. I pair the shiny flavor with the spice and grass notes of rye whiskey. I also add a dash of flavorful Herbsaint to bring the specific notes of each spirit to the fore.

Brambleberry Roffignac
1½ oz Blackberry Brandy
2 oz Rye
6 drops Herbsaint
splash Soda

Stir spirits with 5 oz crushed ice and pour into double rocks glass. Splash soda, stir and serve.

Is it Monday again so soon? With the upheaval and changes going on with this Monkey’s household and work schedules, I just barely squeaked out an entry for this Month’s MxMo. My workstation may still be unconnected and in a box, but the Liquor has been unpacked. Priorities, people.

Kaiser Penguin hosts this month and the topic is fantastic: Limit one per customer. The theme implies a drink so full of booze it warrants the management to limit the purchase. There is another aspect, however. Making a strong drink is easy. Making a balanced and tasty strong drink is more difficult. However, creating a concoction so delicious as to drive a drinker to order successive rounds (and being denied on the face of the menu)? Pure genius.

And for this month’s genius, I turn again to Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry. I’m a lover of the short hoist: a 4oz or less cocktail to be taken as a pick-me-up or before-meal refresher or in-between-meal constitutional. I’ve long been in love with the Von Tiki, The bum’s own original creation at the end of the Grog Log. I also continually sub- and consciously refer to it as the “Baron von Tiki.” I’m sure it’s because of the German honey liqueur Bärenjäger¹ . Austria helps out this aristocratic drink with Stroh 80, a 160-proof rum. This is widely used in Austrian and German baking. I like it daintily sipped with a Coke Chaser². The Barbados rum is there because at the heart, this is a modified Daiquiri. Rum, Gum, and Lime strikes again.

I change the recipe a bit for my own taste: I triple the Stroh and add Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters to balance. I’ve tried replacing the Lime for lemon, but it ends up tasting more like a cough-drop. Lime is perfect for the base, with a lemon hint to match the honey.

With great respect to the Bum, I present:

(baron) Von Tiki - limit one per customer, please

1 oz Bärenjäger
½ oz Stroh 80 160-proof Austrian Rum
1 oz Barbados Rum (I use Cockspur)
¾ oz fresh lime juice
3 dashes Fee Brothers lemon bitters

Shake with crushed ice and strain into 4-oz cocktail glass.

1. A linguistic aside: Bear comes from the Germanic Beor or Beorn. This translates to Bee-Wolf, a kenning that in Old English translates as Beowulf. The kenning here relates to the bear’s love of honey. He is a bee wolf. A lovely self referential name for a honey liquor: the Bee-Wolf-Hunter [↩]
2. Cane Sugar only, not High-Fructose Corn Syrup, please [↩]

After missing last month’s MxMo due to the Death Flu, I’m damned determined to get back in the saddle and on the horse and other metaphors as well. This month is “Variations” hosted by the indefatigable Jimmy Patrick over at Jimmy’s Cocktail Hour. Thanks for hosting, Jimmy!

The Caribbean Rim & trade area presents a great puzzle to armchair historians, specifically those who tipple. I’ve been fascinated not only with the classic Tiki Cocktails, but their common history in Rum production and dispersion. For this Mixology Monday, I present variations on Rum, Gum & Lime (+Mint).

From left to right: Grog, Caipirinha(fore), Daiquiri(back), Julep, and Mojito.

Limes came to the Caribbean (florida) in the 1500s. Rum (and aguardiente) production soon followed in the middle of the 1500s. In 1655, William Penn took Jamaica for the British. Rum soon replaced beer for British ships due to their newly opened Jamaican market.

Ships would carry beer and water for their long voyages. First they used the beer until it turned sour - at that point the men would turn to the water: stale and slimy from algae. The leftover beer would be used make the water a bit more palatable. Limes were also sometimes used to de-dankify the water supply. After 1655, however, rum replaced beer. by the 1750s, The entire British navy ran on rum. They watered down to 1:4 ratio, with lime juice added for better taste. Admiral Vernon is the man behind the order here, called “old Grog.” The popular history involves him and his cape creating the name for the beverage. Nonsense. Grog predates him in literature for at least a few decades. His title of “old Grog,” is after his use of the drink, not the other-way-round. My version is 1:2 - I guess you’re the Captain here.

Grog (1700s: Caribbean Seas)
1 oz Rum
2 oz Water
1 oz Lime
½ oz Simple Syrup

Mix all together without ice and serve in a copper cup.

The Portuguese came to what would become Brazil in the 1500s and brought their distilling skills with them. By 1650, they shipped their aguardiente for trade to Africa, used as ballast. We now know this rum-like product as the Brazilian Cachaça: Fiery, smoky, delicious. Slaves and peasants alike throughout the region were taking their rum, gum, and lime: Cane juice served as the sweetener. It may have been the 90’s that brought the Caipirinha to our shores, but it’s been around for a few centuries.

Caipirinha (1700s, Brazil)
1 lime, cut into eight wedges
1 tbsp evaporated cane sugar
3 oz Cachaça

Muddle the lime and sugar in a double rocks glass until the sugar has dissolved. Fill the glass with crushed ice, pour the Cachaça and stir.

Leave it to us humans to take something that already exists, re-brand it and pretend it a novel invention. Cubans had been drinking rum, gum & lime for a few hundred years before the War for Cuban independence brought the U.S. into Cuba. The war won the U.S. a source for natural resources. When Admiral Lucius W. Johnson brought back mine engineer Jennings Cox’s version, named after the nearby port of Daiquiri, Grog got fancy. When Prohibition hit, It’s no wonder Cuba became a popular travel destination.

Daiquiri (1905, Cuba)
2 oz light rum
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
1 oz simple syrup

Shake with cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wedge.

The first mention of Julep is in a 1803 travel book by John Davis as a “dram of spirituous liquor that has mint steeped in it, taken by Virginians of a morning.” Eleven years later in 1814, William Wirt quotes a 25-year-old book in The Old Batchelor “… A man in this line rises about six o’clock; ” He then drinks a Julip, made of rum, water and sugar.” Note the lack of mint.

Julep comes from the Arabic Julab, a sweet drink to which medicine is added. One history has it spreading through Europe in the 1700s, then to the colonies. Others have it coming from Spanish refugees traveling to Louisiana in the late 1700s. Both used Rum. European and Caribbean ships unloaded their ships and men at the Virginian port of Jamestown as well as New Orleans. They also unloaded their rum and recipes.

Julep (1803, Virgina/New Orleans)
8 Mint leaves
1 tbsp evaporated cane sugar
3 oz light rum

Muddle sugar into mint leaves in mixing glass until you have a nice slurry. Add crushed ice to lip of glass. Add rum and swizzle mixture until glass frosts. Garnish with mint sprig.

Legend has it that in the late 1500s, Richard Drake, first cousin of Sir Francis Drake invented a drink called “The Draque.” It consisted of aguardiente, sugar, lime and mint. What a load of rubbish. Never mind the Aguardiente of the area started shipping in the 1650s, and that Richard Drake died in 1603. It’s a nice marketing story. I’ve read that some Cubans claim Ernest Hemingway invented the drink in the 1930s as a Caribbean Julep. Further primary research is needed, but I’m guessing the locals have been drinking their rum, gum and lime with mint since the 1800s.

Mojito (1800s/1930s, Cuba)
8 Mint leaves
1 tbsp evaporated cane sugar
1 lime, cut into eight wedges
2 oz light rum
1 oz charged water

Muddle lime, mint and sugar until you’re sick of muddling. Add 6 oz of crushed ice and rum. Shake and pour into Collins glass, top with charged water and stir to combine. Garnish with mint sprig.

I’ll come back to these and other drinks, such as bumboo, corn & oil, Rum & coke in later posts and as research allows. I might even have a flowchart.

Cheers!

-=C

p.s. Great thanks to Tikimama for her photography skills and to Trader Tiki for the on-location use of Reynoles’ Galley.

Well, that was an adventure! I still live!

About two weeks ago I went to Seattle with Tikimama. It was her semesterly residence at U-Dub and my excuse to go to Zig Zag. We’d been to Seattle for the Jet City Junket II in December of last year, but I was thwarted at any chance of getting some time at Zig Zag, so I jumped on this opportunity.

The next few entries will be about that wonderful trip - I hit up Zig Zag a few times, was blown away at Vessel, had a great time at Sun Liquor and was pampered at Licorous. It was outstanding, and I paid for it:

When I got home I was hit with the worst flu in nearly a decade. I lost nearly a week’s time in delirium, completely sleeping through Mixology Monday. I’m still coughing and weak. I did manage to spread the love with my friends and family, though. You’re Welcome.

What has kept me in spirits, so to speak? My current regular from Jeff Berry’s Sippin’ Safari: Three Dots and a Dash. You do have Sippin’ Safari, right?

Three Dots and a Dash (…- V)

½ ounce fresh lime juice
½ ounce fresh orange juice
½ ounce honey mix
1½ ounces amber Martinique rum
½ ounce demerara rum
¼ ounce falernum
¼ ounce pimento dram
6 ounces crushed ice

This morse-code lovely is credited to Donn at the Las Vegas Beachcomber restaurant during WWII (V for victory). I assemble this fellow following my new method picked up from the Navy Grog. I add all ingredients to a mixing pitcher and stir to combine. I crush the ice finely, add to the glass and pour the mixture in. I hand-swizzle and aerate the drink with a bar spoon until the glass frosts and add the garnish.

Moving up in favor as a regular is the Honi Honi. Remind me to wax rhapsodical about that in a future post, won’t you? These libations have kept me human in my few weeks of viral stupor. I suppose I could have counted on a Corpse Reviver (#2) to pop me on my feet, but even I can’t be that clever-clever. I’m glad to be back and 200 proof.

Cheers!
-=C