With all the summer heat, it’s been time for the rum drinks. In particularly, I’ve grown really fond of aged rum lately. White, golden and dark rums are familiar to most (avoid spiced rum unless you want to bring back your guest’s memories of college hangovers past), but aged rum is as different from these as a good muscovado sugar is from white and brown sugar. Like whiskey, it is full bodied and complex. Like brandy it is adaptable and a great base for cocktails. What’s more, it’s relatively inexpensive: a top-of-the-line bottle can set you back forty dollars or so, but you can find decent blends for much cheaper. Seemingly every country abutting the Caribbean produces some type of aged, or añejo, rum, and it’s possible to pick up an excellent bottle of 8-to-12 year aged liquor for under twenty dollars. For the time being, the consumer can benefit from aged rum’s distinct untrendiness.

Which brands? It’s worth experimenting to see which flavor suits you best, but given how few Boston bars seem to stock more than one or two bottles of aged rum, that’s a difficult task. Bacardi 8 tastes too peaty and harsh for my taste. Haiti’s Rhum Babancourt has a more straightforward alcohol kick than I’d like, at least in the lower denominated ages. My workhorse favorite is the widely available Jamaican Appleton Estates blend, which to me has the right caramelly, oaky balance. The pocketbook has kept me from venturing far into high end territory – I’ve had Sea Wynde (Jamaican) and it is great – but if you want great value for a superlative rum, I’d highly recommend Ron Zacapa 12-year, from Guatemala, which is surprisingly affordable, if hard to find. (Try Wine Emporium in Brookline.) It’s just as good sipping as mixed, and I shudder to think how wonderful their more expensive 25-year version would be. I’d love to hear any reader recommendations.

How should one serve aged rum? The finest rums are great served neat or on the rocks, but cocktails made from aged rum are too delicious to pass up. Its flavor is more assertive than white rum, but within reason can be used interchangeably in recipes. My favorite, borrowing from my sour orange margarita, is a modified daiquiri using sour oranges instead of limes and a good quality curaçao (like Grand Marnier) instead of maraschino liqueur or Cointreau. It’s light and fruity and robust at the same time.

Sour Orange Daiquiri

Makes 2 cocktails in 5 oz. martini glasses

Juice of one sour orange (or more if the orange is not very juicy)
Few generous dashes simple sugar syrup
4 jiggers (6 oz.) aged rum
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz.) Grand Marnier or good quality curaçao
Orange slice or twist, for garnish

If you do not have sugar syrup on hand, just make some ahead of time; boil equal amounts of sugar and water together until sugar dissolves and a light syrup forms. Cool, then refrigerate. Chill cocktail glasses. In cocktail shaker, add ice, then the main ingredients listed. Shake thoroughly to mix and chill. Pour into glasses and garnish with an orange slice or twist.

If you’re looking for a lighter mixed drink, I’d recommend an Añejo Highball that Dale De Groff concocted: ice, a couple dashes of bitters, lime juice, curaçao, aged rum, then topped off with ginger beer. It’s sweet, but the ginger counters with a bite, the rum with a kick. For the ginger beer itself, stick with Jamaican brands (Stop and Shop at Brigham Circle carries D&G) or the domestic natural food labels; Goya is all bite and no aroma and makes a shoddy drink. My only complaint was that such a fantastic drink had such a pedestrian name, so my friends and I rechristened it the Ginger Rogers. A couple of them, and I’m sure you and your guests can come up with your own silly name for it.

Ginger Rogers
(a/k/a Añejo Highball)
from Dale DeGroff

Makes 1 drink

2 dashes Angostura bitters
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 jigger (3/4 oz.) Grand Marnier or good quality curaçao
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz.) aged rum
Jamaican ginger beer to fill
Mint sprig or piece of sugar cane, for garnish

Fill a highball or tall cooler glass with ice. Coat ice with bitters, then squeeze lime, dropping in spent shell. Add liquors, then top with the ginger beer. Garnish with mint or sugar cane.

Wine Emporium is located on Rt. 9 at Cyprus Street in Brookline, near the Brookline Hills T stop.

Margaritas are nearly as wonderful straight up as they are on the rocks. They’re even better if you make them with sour oranges. I know that I’ve been talking up various knotty, dirty looking exotic citrus fruits you find at hispanic markets. Sour oranges – or naranja agria – are worth seeking out. They’re the traditional bitter oranges used in making orange bitters (not to mention orange marmalade), and they have a nice tartness, like a lemon or lime, with a floral orange taste instead. They really shine in cocktails, and in particular the sour orange margarita is probably the only cocktail I can claim some originality in inventing. (Perhaps recreating the wheel someone else invented?) To this day, it’s my favorite summer cocktail.

It’s a simple variation. A straight-up margarita is just juice of a lime, a good portion of tequila and quality orange liqueur, maybe with a heaping teaspoon of sugar to take the bite off. Substitute sour orange juice, decrease the sugar, and trust me, you’ll have a crowd-pleaser. It’s a good occasion to wheel out a better than average tequila.

Sour Orange Margarita
Makes 2 cocktails in 5 oz. martini glasses

Juice of two sour oranges (or more if the oranges is not very juicy)
Few generous dashes simple sugar syrup, or heaping teaspoons sugar
4 jiggers (6 oz.) tequila, mid-shelf or better
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz.) Grand Marnier, Cointreau or good quality curaçao
Orange twist, for garnish, optional

Chill cocktail glasses. In cocktail shaker, add ice, then the main ingredients listed. Shake thoroughly to mix and chill. Pour into glasses and garnish.

Oh, and if you’re not a tequila fan, try an aged rum, like a nice oaky Jamaican rum. The resulting daiquiris, if untraditional, are just as good.

Sour oranges available at Hi-Lo in Jamaica Plain and at fruit stands near Jackson Square.

Home bartending principle number one: rely on signature drinks.

Everyone who entertains and is not a teetotaler knows – or should know – the value of a well-stocked bar. Having a handful of liquors, a few mixers and a couple of garnishes on hand allow you to accommodate the majority of cocktails or mixed drinks your guests might desire.

Sometimes, however, we don’t live up to this ideal. Stocking a full bar and keeping it stocked can be an expensive enterprise, after all. Sometimes we entertain while on vacation, away from home. Most important, there are times when bartending by the drink is impractical. We have hostly duties or the final details of dinner to attend to, and the last thing we want to do is juggle requests for manhattans, cosmos and white Russians.

In these instances, a single drink on hand saves trouble. If a thematic or seasonal cocktail is presented to them, most guests are happy to follow with whatever is on offer; wine and beer on reserve can keep the others satisfied. The challenge of the home bartender is to choose a drink that will serve as a focal point for the meal, party or gathering – a signature drink or an old standard with a twist.

What do I mean by signature drink? It should be memorable, the sort of thing that guests will remember and associate with you and your event. Cosmopolitans can be just the thing after a day at the beach, but in general along with apple martinis and white Russians, they’re probably too overexposed to seem special for an evening occasion. On the other end of the spectrum, more obscure drinks with stronger liquors can sometimes be hard sells; don’t make a batch of Rob Roys unless you’re reasonably sure that your crowd likes blended scotch. Go for crowd-pleasing yet not cliched; simple yet dramatic.

I’ll be giving ideas for such drinks in this blog. As an example of what a simple cocktail can achieve for a party, let’s start with a blood orange sidecar. Sidecars are my favorite cocktail, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say about them, other recipes to give. But my friend Rebecca suggested using the blood orange to give deep-red color and almost purfumey touch to this great-for-winter cocktail. The fruit is in season now, and what better way to note a special occasion than with seasonal ingredients? The sugared rim adds a nice dramatic touch for company, too.

For value and body, I recommend a decent but not fancy full-bodied brandy; the Spanish brand Fundador always works well for me. The three-citrus punch of Rose’s and juice orange in addition to blood orange may seem like overkill but since blood oranges are sweeter and less acidic the balance is needed. (You’ll find them stingy on the juice, too; the high number in my recipe reflects that.) I tested the recipe with the more classical lemon juice, but the result didn’t seem to gel right and tasted thin, like a failed cosmo.

Cointreau is expensive, but don’t - simply don’t - use regular triple sec here. With a cocktail tittering on the edge of a fine sophisticated-fruity diving line, triple sec will push it straight into cloyingly sweet territory.

For fruity drinks like this, shaking really chills the cocktail and shows off the flavors well. Note the recipe is for four drinks, but depending on your math skills, you can pare it down to one… or mix in larger batches for a more crowded party. If going the latter route, put all ingredients in a pitcher then refrigerate (no more than an hour or two in advance). When mixing, just stir, pour into a cocktail shaker, shake, then strain into cocktail glasses.

Blood Orange Sidecar
Makes 4 cocktails

5 jiggers brandy
2 jiggers Cointreau
1 jigger Rose’s lime juice
juice of 3 blood oranges
juice of 1 regular orange

First sugar the rims of 4 cocktail glasses by rubbing the rims with the flesh of any citrus fruit, then dipping the edge in granulated white sugar. Set aside; you can chill in the freezer if you like.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and pour in ingredients. Shake, then strain into the glasses. Garnish with orange twist.