Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/17414
With Age Comes Beautiful Cocktails While perusing a few well-read cocktail books a while back, I noticed that most recipes for rum drinks called for either light rum or dark rum. Nothing was brand specifi c except for the occasional classic, like the trade- marked Dark ‘n Stormy, which calls for Gosling’s. There weren’t too many recipes calling for aged sipping rums. That is starting to change. Aged rums aren’t just for sipping anymore. I’ve had the good fortune to be a judge in a few rum tasting competitions, the latest being Robert Burr’s Rum Renaissance in Miami this past May. In two days, we tasted over 100 quality rums. On the third day, the festival was open to the public. Suppliers, distillers and blenders from around the world were on hand to sample their fi nest products as well as to offer product education. More than half of the booths featured exotic cocktails with premium aged sipping rums, manned by the some of the most respected mixologists around. The Miami chapter of the USBG was out in full force: bartenders from The Living Room at The Delano, The Sunset Lounge at the Mondrian, The Wall at the W and the Prime Group, to name a few. Also shaking up drinks were rum gurus Ian Burrell, Martin Cate and Jeff Berry. The Experts Agree: Aged Rum Makes Superb Cocktails Five years ago, my friends at Dana Importers were busy building the brand Ron Zacapa, a beautiful 23- year-old aged rum from Guatemala. They called on me to create a few cocktails for them. My fi rst response was that the rum was so great that all it needed was one ice cube. Why mess with a good thing? Their response was clear, “Well how many bottles do you think we are going to sell if we don’t get on some drink lists?” They had a great point. Mojitos move boxes; sipping, not so much. So I started playing around with it and found it made some pretty great cocktails. In fact, they used a photo of a straight-up Ron Zacapa Mojito with a passion fruit foam in an ad campaign throughout the greater Miami area. It looked pretty cool in the recently introduced Reidel Zacapa tasting glass. The sweetness of the rum worked really well with the tartness of the passion fruit. Although Mojito and Ian Burrell is the Rum Ambassador to the U.K. At Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, the rich full fl avor of Pampero is key to one of our house favorites, The Pampanito. The combination of molasses, allspice, bitters and lemon is given real depth with Pampero rum.” —Martin Cate, Owner. october 2010 / the tasting panel / 79 PHOTO: TOM CLARK