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.
I’ve been raving about aged rum. Well, this weekend I stopped at the Wine Gallery in Brookline and picked up a bottle of Ron Zacapa Centenario 15 year aged rum, a very fine and affordable ($28) Guatemalan spirit, then went to the trusty Hi-Lo market for a dozen limes, so I could give this excellent rum the simplest treatment possible. With a dash of simple syrup to round it out, I had what a friend had told me was the Cuban drink par excellence, the mojaga, which is basically the prototype of the daiquiri.
I’ve never been a huge fan of milk or cream-based drinks. A brandy alexander or a White Russian can be fine as an occasional dessert, but the idea one after the other when going out is never appealing. 
