Toast World Rum Day today with a Dark ‘n’ Swarmy.
To create it you will need a highball glass, a lime wedge, some ice, half an ounce of lime juice, ginger beer to taste and two dashes of Angostura bitters and, most important of all, 50ml of Beeble.
The Wiltshire Cotswolds is home to Nicola Arkell Reed and Matt Brauer’s Beeble, a range of honey-infused whisky, rum and tequila spirits. Nicola is an artist as well as a beekeeper. Matt is a bookkeeper.
British rums make good cocktail builds. For example, to make yourself a Brixton Market Rowmance, you will need some Brixton Market Row rum, dried rose petals, limes, raspberries, caster sugar and egg whites or aquafaba.
Add 1.2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of boiling water and stir for 30 seconds. Add half a cup of rose petals and continue to stir until all granules have dissolved and then leave to rest for at least two hours. Strain, muddle away and serve it in your favourite Nick and Nora.
For a Scottish rum cocktail, try a Sherry Basin, which is a spiced rum Old Fashioned rounded out by pale sherry and given a kick with Creole bitters. You will need 50ml Dark Matter Spiced Rum, 15ml pale cream sherry 3 to 4 dashes of Bitter Truth Creole Bitters and a dehydrated orange wheel to garnish.
Further south, you can always mix yourself a Back To The Island for which you need 50ml Mermaid Spiced Rum, 25ml Lime Juice, 75ml Pineapple Juice, 15ml Orange Juice, 15ml Grenadine and 25ml Lavender Syrup.
Something especially British is Jaffa Cake Rum Punch served in a not-so-British Tiki Deuce mug. To create the cocktail you will need 60ml Jaffa Cake Rum, 10ml Lime Juice, 7.5ml Mr Black Coffee Liqueur, 45ml Pressed Pineapple Juice and 2 Dashes of Angostura Bitters.
You can now taste the fruits from British rum strongholds like Borehamwood (The Duppy Share), Exeter (Two Drifters), Falmouth (Mainbrace) Lyme Bay, Devon (Lugger), the Isle of Man (Terry Van Rhynn’s Far Shore Merchants Windsong and Jackdaw Cave give a Manx Mojito), Jersey (Tidal Rum) and Salford with its Dirty Old Town Distillery located at Arch 33 on Viaduct Road.
The Manchester area also boasts Curious Cat white rum and Rock Star Spirits, makers of the 57% ABV Banana and Cherry Spiced Rum Bombs as well as Two Swallows. The rums are sourced from the world’s most sustainable rum distillery the 1650 Diamond Distillery in Panama and blended in Britain.
London taxi driver Moses Odong’s Cabby Rum, which is made in Bow in the East End, making it the world’s first Cockney rum and first Cockney Pina Colada.
If you want something to rock your teeth enamel and your tastebuds, try a Black Cherry Rum frozen daiquiri!
Modern Welsh rums include Bullion. Try the Gold or Hava in a Mai Tai and Siddique made by the Penderyn Distillery.
Siddiqui – pronounced Sid-dee-key – was a way of life for the ex-pat set in the desert of the Middle East as they sought and extracted oil. Part guilty secret, and part a welcome tonic, Siddiqui gave solace to thousands of workers.
Rick Chimblo, Chairman of Siddiqui Rums, says:
“Siddiqui, which is Arabic for ‘my friend’, is a spirit that was originally created to reflect a period of industrial and cultural history and exists as a response to the widespread ban of alcohol imports and sales in the Middle East which occurred in 1952.
“The recipe originated in The Blue Flame manual that everyone followed, and the recipes have been perfected ever since.
“Sid Brown Rum is a spirit that sips like a whisky and parties like a rum.”
This Rum Day enjoy a Sid and Coke.
Author Bio:
Kevin Pilley is a former professional cricketer and chief staff writer of PUNCH magazine. His humour, travel, food and drink work appear worldwide, and he has been published in over 800 titles.
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